


Five Things

by henriettahoney



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Anal Fingering, Engagement, Farmer Ronan Lynch, Gay, Gay Sex, Greywaren Ronan Lynch, Hurt/Comfort, Lawyer Adam Parrish, M/M, Magical Bond, Magical Boys, Magician Adam Parrish, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Minor Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Post-Canon, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish Fluff, Sex, Soft Ronan Lynch, Soft Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, The Barns (Raven Cycle), Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2020-05-31 09:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henriettahoney/pseuds/henriettahoney
Summary: He dreamed of various, lovely things. A music box that played a hauntingly familiar melody, though he was sure he’d never heard it. A section of Gansey’s model Henrietta encased in glass, like an oversized shadow box. A leather bracelet, similar to the bands on his own wrists, but crafted to look like a circlet of leaves. A book with pages that changed each time he flipped it open.A ring.





	1. Chapter 1

Being a dreamer was taxing fucking work.

Ronan Lynch grunted, nosing at his pillow until he’d pushed it as high as he wanted, and closed his eyes. 

His back felt less like shit now than it had since the incident, but that wasn’t saying a whole hell of a lot. Of course, when a night terror had managed to escape a dream for the first time in more than five years, it had been one with venom in its claws. Which, by the way, what the fuck? Apparently his subconscious needed a biology lesson, because he was fairly sure that was  _ not _ how it was supposed to work. 

They’d killed the son of a bitch and burned its body, but taking it down had required every ounce of strength Ronan had had left in him. He hadn’t even registered that it had gotten him, having been running on such high adrenaline, until he’d hit the ground and heard Adam screaming.

The last thing he’d consciously noted was that his tattoo was ruined. 

He hadn’t gone to the hospital, because how the fuck would he have explained  _ that _ , but the bleeding had gotten into scary enough territory that they’d considered trying to make something up. Adam had stopped it, though. 

They hadn’t realized it was infected until the next day, when trying to breathe had sent Ronan to his knees, and at that point he hadn’t gone to the hospital because what the fuck would a doctor have done to treat dream-venom.

He‘d been in and out of consciousness a lot, which, in his case, was good news, because it meant he’d had plenty of time to concoct a dream-salve with supernaturally potent anti-venom and antibiotics in it. The bad news was that his brain had refused to make one that wasn’t activated by “ _ the magician’s touch, _ ” and that was just fucking embarrassing. Not that anyone but Adam would’ve been spreading cream onto his back, anyway, but still. 

It had been just shy of a week now, which meant the nastiest of it was over. Ronan was a little worse for wear—still drained from the infection, still off-kilter from the raging fever it had brought on, still in enough pain not to move any more than necessary—but decidedly on the upswing. 

This in-between state was rather annoying when it meant he felt well enough for his body to acknowledge  _ want _ , but not well enough to satiate it. 

Adam, because he was Adam, could tell that something was off. 

“You’re fidgety,” he noted, sitting down gingerly on the bed next to Ronan, dream salve in hand. “Do you need to pee or somethin’ before I do this?”

“No, mom,” Ronan sighed, muffled against the sheets. “Carry on.”

Adam didn’t pry, but Ronan could feel him thinking. 

Ronan could, in fact, feel him doing a few things. 

Adam’s hands were warm against his skin as he so, so carefully applied the tincture to Ronan’s wounds, smoothing layer upon balmy layer over the cuts and then massaging some of the excess into his tense shoulders. 

The low, breathy sound that slipped past Ronan’s lips was one of relief; nothing more—and he was taking that to his grave. He didn’t have a  _ thing _ for being massaged, he wasn’t a fucking  _ weirdo _ , but he might’ve  _ kind of _ had a thing about Adam’s hands no matter what they were doing. So. Sue him. 

He just wished sometimes that Adam wasn’t so damned perceptive. 

“That feel good?” he asked, soft, and they both knew what he meant. 

Ronan hummed in response. 

Adam kept going. Then, after a minute, “If it’s too much—”

“It’s not.”

“Okay.” Adam‘s fingers trailed down Ronan’s sides with just enough pressure not to tickle, coming together below the tail end of the lowest gash and working circles into the muscles there. Ronan was naked—they’d learned quickly that if he didn’t stay completely still the band of his underwear would ride up enough to brush the laceration closest to it—and Adam let one hand slip down just a little lower. “Is this all right?”

Suddenly, Ronan’s brain was on fire. An interesting sensation, still being as tired as he was. “Yeah,” he managed. 

“You’re gonna have to tell me how far you wanna take it,” Adam said. His voice was low, like he was afraid to scare Ronan off. “I can’t judge how much you can handle.”

Ronan couldn’t handle anything. He could handle enough. He was dying for Adam to touch him  _ there _ . He hadn’t realized he was this desperate for it. He felt electric. He felt like he was falling asleep.

“Long as I don’t have to move,” he said. “Do what you want.”

God bless Adam Parrish for not being one of those pushy pricks who would shoot back with some pushy prick bullshit like,  _ But what do  _ you  _ want? _

Instead, he instructed, barely more than a whisper, “Spread your legs a little bit, baby.”

Ronan did not allow this often. Adam was aware of such. Only when he was in a place between wakefulness and not. Dreaming and not. Actively falling apart and barely holding it together. Adam was only ever so gentle when he knew the act would cut a thread that Ronan was fighting too hard to pull tight.

The thread had been cut.

Ronan shifted, hitching his right leg upward.

"Perfect,” Adam praised. “Thank you.”

His fingers were still coated in the dream—salve, and Ronan pictured them in his mind, glistening and strong, as they came down on him.

“Oh, god,” he said. 

“Shhh,” Adam soothed, not insisting, not pressing. Just resting against him. “I’ve got you.”

Only after Ronan had taken a moment to catch his breath did Adam move. It was a barely-there thing, but enough for Ronan to feel, and he arched into it to let Adam know that it was good.

He didn’t know if he had ever been so simultaneously comforted and set alight by something before.

“It’s okay if you’re too tired,” Adam told him, and then, before he could protest, “to stay awake, I mean. I’ll keep goin’ until it gets you there if that’s what you need. As long as you tell me right now that that’s. You know. What you want. You can go to sleep.”

Something tightened in Ronan’s chest at the sentiment that they’d been together this long, this many years, and Adam was still so adamant about verbal consent. “I’ll try,” he mumbled. “To stay awake. But if I can’t, I don’t want you to stop.”

“Then I won’t.”

As he had been doing for nearly a week, Ronan drifted. When he was aware,  _ in _ , he felt Adam’s fingers inside him and murmured affirmations, pressing his hips down against the mattress, to which Adam responded with beautifully surprised expletives. When he was  _ out,  _ he  _ saw  _ Adam instead, inside Cabeswater, crystals and vines emerging from his skin.

“I can’t believe I get to keep you,” he said.

“What?” asked  _ in  _ Adam.

_ Out  _ Adam smiled and extended his hand.

Ronan took it.

He was awake, and he was human. He was loved. He was warm. He was asleep, and he was a dreamer. The greywaren. Divine.

In Cabeswater, there were glittering, miniscule diamonds running in rivulets down his thighs.

At the Barns, there was pre-come soaking into the comforter beneath him.

“Tell me what you need,” both Adams said.

The greywaren put the magician’s fingers to his mouth. 

Ronan told Adam, “Just this.”

When he came, in Cabeswater, white light enveloped them both. There was nothing else. 

At the Barns, he jolted into consciousness. 

“Easy, easy,” Adam reminded him, palm flat against his lower back. “You okay?”

“Golden,” Ronan said. 

“I’m gonna…I have to…”

_ Pull my fingers out of your ass,  _ is what Adam would have said, were he a less eloquent being. 

“Go ahead,” Ronan submitted. 

As with all things regarding Ronan’s comfort, Adam did it with enough caution that Ronan felt next to nothing, and then made quick work of removing the soiled blanket from underneath him, replacing it with a new one to drape over his lower half instead. 

“Feel better?”

“Mmh.”

“Maybe you can get some actual sleep now.”

Ronan scoffed. He’d been sleeping for days. He said as much. 

“You’ve been  _ fever dreaming _ ,” Adam corrected. “You need rest.”

Ronan wanted to protest, because  _ fuck you, Parrish, I’m not a child _ , but his eyelids were so heavy. 

* * *

When he woke, it was to Adam placing a glass of milk and a plate of scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast on the nightstand next to him. 

“I need you to eat,” Adam said, stroking over his forehead. “Then you can go right back to sleep.”

Dutifully, if robotically, Ronan complied. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d had genuine food, he realized. The fever had been too high, at first, for him to keep anything but liquids down. The eggs were light and cheesy, and the toast was crisp and sweet, and it was maybe the best meal he’d ever had. 

“Doesn’t taste like cafeteria food,” he teased. “You sure you’re my nurse?”

Adam laughed, a single breath out his nose. “Shut up. Finish it. Or eat as much as you can, at least.”

Ronan finished it. 

He went back to sleep. 

He dreamed of various, lovely things. A music box that played a hauntingly familiar melody, though he was sure he’d never heard it. A section of Gansey’s model Henrietta encased in glass, like an oversized shadow box. A leather bracelet, similar to the bands on his own wrists, but crafted to look like a circlet of leaves. A book with pages that changed each time he flipped it open. 

A ring. 

It was a simple thing. A thin, silver band, with a singular black stone embedded into the center, so small that from a distance it would have been imperceptible. Etched inside, the words  _ in omnis mundi _ . In every world. 

In his bed, Ronan could not move anything but his eyes. To his right, he saw Adam, sleeping. To his left, on the floor, a music box. A glass case containing a strip of a miniature city. A bracelet. An unmarked book. 

Inside his closed fist, a weight. 

Once he could move again, he didn’t. 

Instead, he said, “Adam.”

Adam shot up, blinking his unconsciousness away as though it were a physical veil. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Is everything— _ whoa _ .”

The  _ whoa  _ was for the barrage of dream objects made visible to him via his newfound position. Ronan hadn’t brought much of anything back with him in quite some time save for small, controlled objects to keep the nightwash at bay, which was part of the reason the monster had been such a shock. 

“Ronan, this is… _ four  _ things at once? What do you think that means? Did you do it on purpose?”

“Five.”

“What?”

Ronan eased himself onto the edge of the bed and swung his legs over it, sitting up and facing away from Adam. 

“Five things.”

“Jesus, don’t hurt yourself,” Adam reprimanded. “Let me help you. Wait,  _ five _ things? Where’s the fifth one?”

Wordlessly, without turning around, Ronan opened his fist. 

He was met with silence. 

The silence was long. He didn’t break it. He didn’t budge. His heart pounded erratically against his ribs, hard enough to hurt. 

Fuck the horrors of his nightmares. Adam Parrish was more terrifying than they could ever be. 

Then, after a thirty second eternity: “Well. That’s not fair.”

It was Ronan’s turn to be confused. He looked over his shoulder to meet Adam’s eyes, afraid of what he would see. 

“You’re the one with all the money,” Adam elaborated, “and you just get to dream up whatever you want. I had to buy yours.”

“Listen, Parrish, you don’t get to have a vendetta against me for being born rich forever, oka—” Ronan halted. _ I had to buy yours.  _ “What the fuck did you just say?”

Adam scooted to the edge of the bed, too, only rather than settling next to Ronan, he got up and crossed the room to the closet. From the top, right corner, he extracted a shoebox. 

Ronan was familiar with said shoebox. It housed their social security cards, birth certificates, etcetera. It was their run of the mill  _ important shit  _ box. 

But today, now, Adam removed something new from it. Something Ronan had never seen. 

A small, black ring case. 

“I said,” Adam began, measured and even, which told Ronan he was about to lose it, “that I had to buy yours.”

Ronan sort of understood Adam’s quiet spell now, because. God. 

Adam crossed the floor back to the bed and  _ did  _ sit down next to him now, which was a fucking relief, because Ronan had been half expecting him to drop to one knee or some shit. 

“Me first,” Adam said, holding out his hand for the ring.

Ronan gave it to him.

He’d only been inspecting it for a fraction of a second when his eyes flitted up to Ronan’s and then back down to the band in disbelief. “No way. No fuckin’ way you haven’t seen—there’s  _ no way. _ ”

“What? Parrish, I haven’t seen shit, what are you talking about?”

“Open it,” Adam told him.

Ronan took the ring box and pulled back the lid.

What he found was a strikingly similar silver band. It bore no embedded stone, but an impossibly thin black strip ran through the entirety of its center. Black rhodium, Ronan’s brain supplied helpfully. Inside, there were three engraved words. 

_ In omnis vita.  _ In every life.

"No fuckin’ way,” Ronan echoed.

“Ronan, you  _ swear—” _

“Jesus fuck, man,  _ yes,  _ I swear—”

“‘Cause I’ve had it for a couple months, and—”

“What would I have been digging through that box of shit for in the past couple—hold up, you’ve had it  _ how  _ long?”

“Not the point.”

“Right. Sorry. So. What the fuck?”

Adam stilled, and then he fell back onto the bed, draping an arm across his eyes. “Cabeswater.”

Ronan rested a hand on Adam’s thigh, because if he didn’t ground himself somehow he was afraid he might pass out. Adam had  _ bought him a ring _ . “Cabeswater  _ how _ ?”

“I asked it,” Adam admitted. Ronan could see the lightest flush of pink tinting his cheeks now, peeking out from beneath his arm. “I asked it what you’d like. What you’d want. It told me. Not, like. I—I picked the ring out. But the whole sappy Latin phrase idea was Cabeswater. It knows you better than you know yourself, so I figured I should listen, even if I knew you’d give me shit for it. I think it interfered with your dream. Like it wanted them to be a—I don’t know, a  _ pair  _ or something.”

“Yeah, that makes sense, I guess,” Ronan said, considering. He would not address the fact that Adam had asked Cabeswater to help design the _ ring he’d bought him.  _ “I mean, I definitely didn’t engrave mine—yours—the other one—by fuckin’ hand or anything. And I didn’t ask for it. It just showed up that way.”

A beat. Then, quietly, Adam asked, “You didn’t ask for the engraving? Or the ring?”

Ronan felt as though this was a trick question. Cautiously, he answered, “I didn’t ask for either one. But if I hadn’t wanted you to know, I could’ve just gotten up and flushed it down the toilet. I did start this conversation, if you recall.”

Adam’s hands were shaking. He uncovered his eyes. “You did,” he conceded. “Are you going to finish it?”

“You’re the one that’s had a ring for _a couple months_ , apparently,” Ronan mocked, forcing far more security into his voice than he felt. “Maybe you should finish it.”

Adam sat back up and sighed, a little exasperated, a little defeated. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I had a plan.”

“Oh, Mary and Joseph,” Ronan groaned. “You had a  _ plan _ ? Like, a mariachi band, middle of downtown New York City, full on dance routine  _ plan _ ?” 

Adam smirked. “Not exactly. I was just gonna take you to dinner.”

Ronan took his hand—the one not still holding the dream-ring—and squeezed. “Lucky for you, my appetite’s back in full swing. Take me to dinner.”

Adam’s gaze dropped to his feet and he shook his hair into his eyes, a sure tell that he was nervous. “No, it’s, uh. It’s really stupid. I wasn’t gonna take you somewhere, like,  _ nice  _ or anything, I was. I was gonna.”

“‘Course it’s stupid, it’s  _ your  _ plan,” Ronan said, which earned him the eye roll of the century. “That doesn’t mean I don’t wanna do it. I’ve had enough good, solid rest not to feel like I’m dying anymore. You don’t have to tell me where we’re going, if that’ll make you feel better. Let’s just go.”

For a moment, Ronan didn’t think Adam was going to cave. Then, reluctantly, he asked, “How long do you think you can wear a shirt?”

* * *

It shouldn’t have been surprising, really, the way Ronan felt like he was edging dangerously close to a breakdown as soon as they stepped into Nino’s. It had been at least a year since they’d been—maybe longer—and there was a fresh coat of paint on the walls. It might never stop being strange not to see Blue stationed behind the counter. But still, just where it had always been, their booth rested securely against the window. 

They took their places as they always had, Adam facing the door, Ronan facing Adam, and when their not-Blue-Sargent server approached them, Ronan ordered as though he were on autopilot, repeating thousands of his past selves word for word.

Their server left.

Ronan was trembling.

Adam misinterpreted. “What’s wrong?” he asked. They were the only two in the restaurant apart from the staff, but he kept his voice hushed. “Seriously, if you’re already hurting that bad—”

Ronan shook his head. “I’m fine. This is.”

Again, because he would never learn to stop self-doubting or self-deprecating, Adam misinterpreted. “I told you it was stupid,” he backpedaled. “We should—let’s—”

“Adam.”

Adam stopped.

“It’s not stupid,” Ronan told him, making full eye contact to be sure Adam knew he was serious. “It’s fucking. It’s  _ exactly  _ what I would’ve done. This is where.”

It was where Adam had first realized that he felt it, too. It was where  _ Ronan _ had first realized that his feelings were reciprocated. It was the place they’d played a silent game directly under their friends’ noses for weeks, waiting to see who would figure it out first. This old, outdated pizza house was their beginning.

Ronan felt Henrietta more intensely than he had in longer than he could remember. Months. Years. He felt the sheer proximity of Adam, and the reality that he was Ronan’s as much as he was his own. He felt the pull of the ley lines. He felt his own potential, dormant beneath his waking skin. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, a little more sure now, pulling Ronan back into the present. “I just didn’t really feel like there was anywhere else that made sense.”

Before Ronan could respond, the server brought over their pizza and drinks, for which Adam politely thanked her. She smiled at him a little too brightly, but Ronan’s glare sent her on her way quickly enough.

Adam looked like he wanted to call after her and apologize, but also like he wanted to call after her just so she could watch him kiss Ronan right on the mouth. He did neither. 

“So,” Ronan prompted, picking up a slice from the tray and not bothering with a plate. “How does this work, exactly? Do you still  _ ask _ , even though I know you’re asking?”

Adam flushed, working his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “Do you. I mean. Do you  _ want  _ me to ask?”

Ronan took a bite. Swallowed. “This is your deal, Parrish.”

Adam was not touching his food. “What would you say? If I did?”

Ronan raised precisely one brow and one side of his mouth. “That takes all the fun out of it.”

“Okay,” Adam huffed, “well, it’s not like I was  _ planning  _ on doing this today, so what if I’m not ready to ask?”

That hit Ronan like a punch to the chest. He brushed it off. “Then don’t ask.”

Adam actively pushed the pizza away from himself, rubbing his thumb along the length of his pointer finger. “I didn’t say I didn’t want—just—”

He was crossing the line from nervous to anxious very, very quickly, Ronan could tell. What was he supposed to do, just let that happen?

He cleared his throat.

Adam looked up.

Ronan extracted the dream-ring from his pocket.

“This whole thing was kind of my fault,” he started. “I didn’t have to tell you as soon as I figured out I’d brought it back. But I did. So maybe you were right. Maybe if I started the conversation, I should finish it.”

“...Ronan.”

“You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life anyway. You commute to your fancy law firm from the Barns. You let Opal eat as many pairs of your pretentious shoes as her orphan heart desires. You—you keep my ass alive.”

“Ronan _. _ ”

“You said, a long time ago, to ask again when you were twenty-five. You’d just graduated, and I was  _ wasted,  _ and I said,  _ Don’t go to Harvard. Marry me. _ And you said,  _ Ask me again when I’m out of school. When I’m twenty-five. If I haven’t gotten rid of you by then, I doubt I ever will.  _ And here we are. And maybe that’s what Cabeswater’s deal was—maybe it was trying to remind me. 

I didn’t figure it out until after, but everything I pulled out of the dream today was built around you. The music box feels like listening to you. Like, if someone composed a piece to feel like you, it. It would be that. And the book changes every time you open it, and when I started thinking about what I was reading I realized it was a different story from your shelf in the study every time. You told Gansey once, when I was giving him shit about the model Henrietta, that you’d put it in glass and preserve it forever if you could. You said it helped you feel bigger, to see it from the outside that way. The bracelet looks like some shit straight from Cabeswater, but also straight from me. And then. You know. The ring. I think my brain was just rifling through things until it got to the right one. And I think it was supposed to happen now, because nothing is a coincidence. So. Adam Parrish.” 

“ _ Ronan _ .”

“You’re twenty-five. Are you still trying to get rid of me?”

Adam couldn’t trust himself to form any word save for Ronan’s name. He shook his head.

“Then, do you think,” Ronan asked, “that it might be safe to say you could marry me now?”

Adam didn’t even try to stop the single tear that spilled over his lashes as he reached across the table for ronan to slip the ring onto his finger.

“Safe as life.”

* * *

Adam’s ring fit perfectly, because of course it did. Luckily, so did Ronan’s. They finished their dinner at a languid pace, no need to rush now that they’d taken care of formalities, and when their server returned to refill their drinks, she was far less put out by the sight of their newly acquired jewelry than Ronan expected she’d be. She even congratulated them. 

The drive back to the Barns was comfortably quiet.

Once they’d gotten inside and gotten Ronan undressed (and newly dream-salved; they’d had to bandage his back in order for him to put a shirt on and Adam wanted it getting as much air as possible) Adam said, “We should probably call Gansey and Blue.”

They called Gansey and Blue.

“Ronan,” Gansey answered, obviously shocked to have received the call from his phone rather than Adam’s. “How are you feeling? Are you healing up all right? Is something wrong?”

“I’m just peachy,” Ronan told him. “Whether or not something’s wrong kinda depends on you, though. Can you make time in your busy city boy schedule to plan a wedding? ‘Cause if not, I’m shit outta luck.”

There was a pause, some indistinct mumbling (Blue), and then, “Are Declan and Ashley finally getting married? Why would they want  _ me  _ to plan their wedding? I’m flattered, don’t get me wrong, but wouldn’t they just hire someone?”

Ronan snorted. 

“Hey,” Adam said, to alert Gansey that he was present. “Are we on speaker?”

"Oh, Adam! I was worried you’d been killed when I saw it was Ronan calling. Yes, yes, you’re on speaker. Say hello, Jane.”

“Hello, Jane,” Blue echoed, happy sarcasm carrying breezily through the phone. “Declan and Ashley are getting married? Gross.”

“Uh,” Adam said. 

“Don’t get too excited,” Ronan told her. “Hate to break it to you, Sargent, but it’s not your favorite Lynch’s turn for wedding bells just yet.”

“What the fuck?” Blue asked, and then, incredulous, “ _ Matthew?  _ Has he even been  _ dating  _ anyone?”

Ronan snorted again, leaning absentmindedly back against the headboard and then hissing sharply at the contact. 

“Shit, Ro, careful,” Adam chided, cupping the back of his head to pull him up. After assessing him for a moment to gauge the damage and determining that it seemed not to be detrimental, to Blue, Adam said, “No, it’s not, um. It’s not Matthew.”

Another pause. A longer one. 

“Lynch. You don’t have any other brothers.”

Ronan gripped Adam’s arm for leverage, lowering himself slowly onto his side. “Good observation, maggot.”

“What the fuck,” Blue repeated. It wasn’t a question this time. 

“Ronan.” Gansey, guarded. “Do you mean—are you saying—”

“Bingo, Dick. Your baby boy’s leaving the nest. Do we have your blessing?”

“ _ Ronan,”  _ Gansey repeated, with new emphasis. “You’re getting  _ married _ ?”

“Did somebody drop you on your head as an infant?” Blue snapped. She was  _ very  _ keyed up all of a sudden. “Yes, Gansey,  _ Jesus. They’re getting married. _ ”

“I would’ve told you guys before,” Adam interjected, “but I wasn’t exactly planning on doing it yet.”

“ _ You  _ proposed? Oh, well, of course. Of course you did. Adam, this is just—this is—” Gansey was beside himself. Adam had expected as much. 

“Actually, no, I didn’t. I was going to, but I. Um. It’s a really long story.” Adam’s eyes drifted over Ronan’s face, settling on the small, pained crease between his brows. He frowned and smoothed his thumb over it, asking without asking. 

Ronan smiled, small and tired but sincere.  _ I’m okay.  _

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to tell us in person,” Blue said, indignant. “We’re coming over.” She said this,  _ coming over _ , as though it was just as simple as it had always been. As though they’d already planned it. As though she and Gansey didn’t live an hour away. D.C. wasn’t a bad drive—Adam made it four days a week—but it was already nearing ten o’clock at night. 

“Dial back the crazy,” Ronan scoffed, eyes slipping closed. “It’s late. It’d be late as all shit by the time you got here. At least give me until tomorrow to mentally prepare.”

Blue started to argue, in true Blue fashion, but Gansey cut in before she could get too far. “Ronan’s right, love. We should let them celebrate. We’ll get some rest and leave first thing in the morning.”

“ _ Fine,”  _ Blue agreed somewhat venomously. “But I mean it.  _ First thing _ . Expect me at your front door before the sun.”

“We’ll leave it open,” Adam assured her fondly. Then, after weighing how worth the inevitable scorned expression it would be, “Ronan’s hurting pretty bad again, so we’re gonna go so I can try to get him to sleep. But we’ll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?”

“Bright and early,” Gansey confirmed. “I love you. Both of you. I’m so honored to be your best friend, and I’m so glad you found—”

“Gansey. Ronan didn’t call Adam a fucker for telling us he was in pain. That means he’s in pain. Save it for the rehearsal speech.”

“Right, of course. I’m sorry. Congratulations. Take care of him, Adam.”

Adam’s heart seized, and he leaned down, brushing his lips over Ronan’s temple.  _ I didn’t break him, Gansey,  _ he wanted to say.  _ Are you proud? _

Instead, what he said was, “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak Latin, and every Internet translator sucks dick. If anyone knows how far off I am here, feel free to correct me.
> 
> If you've enjoyed seeing Ronan in minor distress/pain, I'm happy to put him in plenty more upon request. Or Adam, for that matter.
> 
> The dirty talk fic is still coming, I swear. This one just happened first. 
> 
> If you wanna see continuations of this that involve the boys telling Blue and Gansey the whole proposal story/the wedding/maybe the honeymoon??? (idk), let me know. I might not write them if you ask, but I definitely won't write them if you don't ask.
> 
> Bonus: Why didn't Blue and Gansey go to the Barns when Ronan first got hurt, even though they obviously knew about it? Because I'm not a good writer, and I'm too lazy for revisions. Plot holes all around!  
> Extra bonus: What did Adam do, just take an entire week off work to take care of Ronan? Adam Parrish? An entire week? Honestly, that's the easiest assumption to make, so we'll go with it. I'm not a good writer, in case I haven't mentioned that, and I'm also too lazy for revisions.  
> Super duper bonus: Where is Opal? I! don't! know!!! :) 
> 
> My tumblr is themagiciansthief, if you wanna come over and tell me I'm the worst. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he reached the living room, Blue was standing, hand outstretched expectantly.  
> Adam deposited the rings into her palm.  
> Two things happened.  
> First, both in contact with both bands, Adam’s skin brushed Blue’s.  
> Second, Adam was inside Cabeswater.

“Ronan.  _ Ronan _ .”

“Jesus, Parrish, what?”

“Flip the bacon, it’s gonna burn. I’m trying to get Opal—we do  _ not _ bite, you  _ know better _ —I’m trying to get Opal dressed.”

“Cool it for a fuckin’ second, you’re gonna give yourself an ulcer. It’s just Gansey and Blue. We’re not  _ entertaining guests _ . You want me to take a nap real quick and dream up an add-on for the house with a grand piano in it?”

“God, I could strangle you. Bacon. Please.”

These mornings were not unheard of. They were not even uncommon. Since they’d first met, Adam had wanted to kill Ronan as often as he’d wanted to kiss him. The fact that they lived together and were on their way to getting married now didn’t change a thing. 

“Addie,” Opal said, muffled, as Adam pulled her dress over her head. 

“What, baby?” Adam asked, smoothing her hair down. 

“Kerah needs dream cream. Don’t forget.” She said it like this:  _ dreeeam creeeam _ .

“I know,” Adam sighed. “I’ll put some on him in a minute. Go play.”

“Tell me when Boo comes?” she insisted, bouncing in Adam’s grasp. 

“I’ll find you when Boo comes,” Adam assured her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Go on.”

Opal went. 

In the kitchen, Adam found Ronan leaning against the counter in nothing but a pair of sweats, chugging orange juice straight from the carton. 

“You are obscene,” he told him. 

When Ronan lowered the juice from his lips, they were glistening. Adam stepped closer and kissed him. 

“Mornin’,” Ronan mumbled, hand coming up to rest on Adam’s hip. 

“Did you bring the, uh…” Adam kissed him again. He couldn’t stop himself. He’d been worrying for days—not that he wasn’t at all anymore, but to a much lesser degree—and it was an overwhelming relief to have Ronan downstairs with him first thing in the morning, in next to normal condition. “Sorry,” he breathed, pulling away and leaning their foreheads together. “Um. Did you bring the salve down with you?”

Ronan wrapped both arms around his waist, chin resting on top of his head, and Adam closed his eyes, allowing himself to relax. 

“It’s on the table. We’ll get to it in a minute. How long do we have before they get here?”

Adam glanced up to the clock on the wall above the refrigerator. “‘Bout fifteen minutes, according to Gansey. Why?”

“Just curious.” Ronan pressed closer so subtly that, if Adam hadn’t known him better, he’d have thought it was an accident. 

“Don’t do this to me right now,” he laughed softly, mouth brushing over Ronan’s neck as he spoke. “It’s been—” He hesitated, brain reeling to come up with an exact number of days, and settled on, “—way too long for fifteen minutes to be enough time.”

“For you, maybe,” Ronan teased. “I don’t know if you remember or not, but yesterday, back when my fiancé was still my boyfriend, he fucked me on his fingers until I came all over the bed.”

“I  _ hate _ you,” Adam groaned, pushing away from Ronan, who was openly staring at his newly pronounced morning erection with a sly grin. “I am going to go take a very quick, very  _ cold _ shower. You behave. And finish breakfast.”

“Yessir,” Ronan responded, throwing in a mock-salute for emphasis. 

Adam showered. He did not think. He did not touch himself. 

When he emerged and dressed and headed back down the stairs, it was just in time for the front door to swing open and Blue to practically sob, “Oh, thank god, you have  _ food _ .”

“Dick, what have I told you about starving your pets?” Ronan asked, neatly dodging Blue’s fist and pulling her under one arm to ruffle her hair instead. 

Gansey started to respond, but before he could, he caught sight of Adam and rushed forward, wrapping him in a tight embrace. 

Adam beamed, hugging him back fiercely. 

“Adam Parrish,” Gansey said when he let go, holding Adam at arms length as if to assess him. “Look at you.”

“Gansey, it’s been a  _ month _ ,” Blue said, pulling him off of Adam to step in for her own hug. “He’s not a toddler. He hasn’t grown a foot since the last time we saw him.” Then, to Adam, “Hi.”

“Hey,” he greeted, sweeping a quick kiss over her cheek. “I gotta run out and find Opal. She made me promise I’d come get her when you got here. Y’all go ahead and start eating, I’ll be right back.”

Adam found her not too far from the edge of the forest, playing with a white rabbit (Adam wasn’t certain whether it was  _ dream _ or  _ real _ ) and munching on a handful of tree bark. 

“Hey, you,” he said, reaching down for her. “Boo and Gans are here.”

Opal gasped and squealed and flung herself into Adam’s arms. The rabbit did not startle, which led Adam to the conclusion that it was, indeed, a dream thing. 

He hauled Opal back into the house, kicked off his shoes, and pulled the towel from the key hook in the entryway to wipe down her hooves before setting her loose. 

“Boo!” she hollered, clomping through the house until she reached the kitchen, Adam trailing behind her. 

“Finally!” Blue cried, meeting her in the doorway and picking her up to twirl her in a circle. “There’s my favorite girl! We’ve been missing you so much.”

“I wanna come stay with you in D.C. soon,” Opal told her, clinging tightly around her neck. “But! I got to stay at Fox Way for a whole week when Kerah got hurt, and I wanna go back there, too! Maura just brought me home late, late, late last night.”

“We can definitely make that happen,” Blue assured her, peppering her face with kisses and easing her back to the floor. “I’m glad you had a good time, sweetheart. Gansey, stop gawking at Ronan’s back. It’s disgusting. We’ve all seen it. Come get some food.”

“Oh, shit,” Adam said, swiping the dream-salve from the table. “Come here, Ro.”

“You come to me,” Ronan bargained. “I’m injured and weak, remember?”

“I’ll show you injured in a minute,” Adam told him, rolling his eyes. He still crossed the floor to him, though, turning him around to face the sink as Gansey stepped away to retrieve a plate from the cabinet. “I know it sucks,” he said, “but try to stay still. It’s harder when you’re not laying down.”

“Comforting, Parrish. Thanks.” 

Ronan stood as still as he could, but by the time Adam had finished spreading the salve over his back, his knuckles were white where his fingers gripped the counter, hands shaking. 

“Okay,” Adam said when he was done, reaching around Ronan to wash his hands. “You go sit. What do you want, some of everything?”

“With extra caffeine,” Ronan confirmed, taking a seat heavily at the table, where Opal climbed into his lap. “Easy, munchkin. You gotta stay up on my knees, okay? I can’t sit all the way back.”

Adam’s heart swelled, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the affection in Ronan’s voice when he spoke to Opal or the fact that Ronan was so comfortable with himself and everyone here that he wasn’t trying to downplay the seriousness of his injuries. 

“Why didn’t you dream something that would just heal it, like, overnight?” Blue asked around a bite of a biscuit. 

“Oh, he tried,” Adam assured her, placing a plate in front of Ronan and returning his quiet ‘thank you’ with a chaste kiss. “We’re guessing it wouldn’t work because a dream monster did it. But this stuff’s been doing a pretty decent job. Better than stitches. You should’ve seen it when it first happened.”

“Well, we  _ would’ve _ ,” Blue snapped, “if anyone would’ve  _ called  _ us before it had been  _ three days _ .”

“And given Gansey an aneurysm?” Ronan scoffed. “‘Frantic’ and ‘helpful’ aren’t usually synonymous terms, Sargent. He would’ve killed me inside five minutes.”

Blue looked like she was going to protest, but then shrugged her shoulders as if to say,  _ fair _ , and shoveled a forkful of eggs into her mouth. 

Gansey didn’t even attempt to defend himself.

“Kerah?” Opal asked.

Ronan’s mouth was full of the coffee Adam had just handed him, but he responded, “Hm?” setting his mug down and swallowing. 

“Is this a special weekend?”

As adam took his place next to Ronan at the table, they met each other’s eyes. 

“Boo and Gans mostly come on special weekends,” Opal continued. “Like Addie’s birthday last time.”

“Yeah,” Ronan answered carefully. “Yeah, kiddo. It is a special weekend. When we’re done with breakfast we’ll all go in the living room and talk about it. Addie and I have something to tell you.”

Because Opal was not like most children, she did not pry or whine or throw a fit. Instead, she simply said, “Okay.”

Blue and Gansey and Adam and Ronan ate. Opal sometimes watched them and sometimes watched Chainsaw swooping up and down above the field outside through the kitchen window.

When everyone was finished with their eating and their watching, the adults refilled their coffee and carried their mugs and their fawn-girl into the living room.

Ronan—because this was the most physical effort he’d exerted since the attack and Adam could tell he was already getting tired—stretched out across the couch at Adam’s insistence, head in Adam’s lap. Opal sat in the center of the area rug. Gansey and Blue took the loveseat. 

“Who’s gonna do this?” Ronan asked, stifling a yawn.

“I can,” Adam told him, bending to kiss his temple. “Opal, do you remember when Boo and Gans got married?”

“Yeah!” Opal answered excitedly, one hoof clicking against the wood floor as she tapped her leg. “Boo wore the pretty princess dress! And there was so much cake. And the sparklies!”

“Sparklers,” Gansey reminded Blue in response to her perplexed expression. “Remember? Everyone held sparklers over us while we walked out of the ceremony.”

“Oh, yeah,” Blue laughed, nodding her head. “The sparklies. How could I forget?”

“Almost started a fuckin’ forest fire,” Ronan recounted fondly.

“Anyway,” Adam chuckled, hand running absently over Ronan’s bicep, “do you remember us telling you why they were getting married, and what it meant?”

“You said people get married because they love each other,” Opal dutifully recounted. “And because they don’t ever wanna be with anyone else. And Kerah said sometimes it’s for taxes.”

At this, they all laughed.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed, “sometimes it is. But it shouldn’t be. What you said first, that’s what marriage should be about. Love. You know I love Kerah, right?”

Ronan caught Adam’s hand, lifting it to his lips.

“Yes,” Opal said, softer now. “And Kerah loves you, Addie.”

Adam allowed himself a small smile, eyes wandering over the side of Ronan’s face. “He does,” Adam conceded. 

Then, as simply as if she were asking what they were going to have for dinner: “So does that mean you’re getting married?”

Adam blinked. “Well. Yeah, actually. That’s the plan. But we wanted to talk to you first and ask how you felt about it.”

“If you get married,” Opal said, “what will change?”

This was not a question that Adam had anticipated. Before he could respond, Ronan said, “Nothing. Addie already lives here with us, doesn’t he?”

“ _ Duh _ . And you already kiss all the time. And sleep in the same bed. And you take care of each other and you cook together and you take turns feeding the chickens, only Addie does it most because he has to be up early for work anyway.”

“Told you I feed the chickens more,” Adam said smugly. “Even the kid’s noticed.”

Ronan, still holding Adam’s hand level with his mouth, bit down playfully on the knuckle of Adam’s middle finger. “You signed up to live on a farm, Parrish. If you don’t wanna put in work, you can get out.”

Adam sighed dramatically, head falling back against the couch. “All right. Let me up, then. I have to go pack.”

“ _ No!”  _ Opal shrieked, throwing herself from the floor onto Adam’s left thigh—the one Ronan’s head wasn’t occupying. “You are  _ not  _ leaving. Not, not,  _ not. _ ”

“Easy, sweetie,” Adam chuckled, wrapping his arm around her to settle her against his side. “You’re gonna kick Kerah in the face. I’m not leaving. I was just joking.”

Opal glared up at Adam, mischievous anger and fondness warring in her expression. “Not funny, Addie. I’m going back outside now. You  _ stay _ .”

“He’s staying, squirt,” Ronan assured her, propping himself up on his elbow. “Go find Chainsaw. Make sure she’s been hunting.”

Opal hopped off the couch, stuck her tongue out at Adam (who mockingly returned the gesture) and began galloping loudly through the house until the door could be heard smacking into the wall and then slamming shut. 

“I’d say that went well,” Gansey commented, crossing his ankle over his knee. 

“Yeah,” Blue followed, “so now that we’re all on the same page, kid included, I expect details. How did this come about, exactly?”

“You can take this part,” Adam offered, nudging Ronan’s shoulder with his leg. 

“Fine,” Ronan agreed begrudgingly. “But I’m not sitting up for an audience. So, uh, yeah. I’ve been pretty fucked up. Pretty in and out, you know, for the past week. Yesterday was kind of the  _ getting over it _ day, I guess. Sweating out the rest of the fever, actually eating food, resting instead of just trying not to die. All that jazz. I guess my brain thought that if it was catching up on some decent, dream state sleep all at once, I should  _ dream  _ all at once. So I did. And I brought some stuff out.”

“Oh, god,” Blue groaned. “You did not  _ dream _ a ring by accident, Ronan. Tell me you’re not  _ that _ soft.”

“I wish I could,” Ronan said with solemn conviction. “Believe me. I’m having an identity crisis over here. But, yeah, that’s exactly what I did.”

“Well. All right, then. Let’s see it.”

“They’re upstairs,” Adam said, easing out from beneath Ronan to stand. “We didn’t want Opal to start asking questions before we’d had a chance to explain. She’s very observant.”

“ _ They _ ?”

Adam’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“You said  _ they’re  _ upstairs,” Gansey elaborated. “Plural.”

“Oh, yeah. I told you last night, I was gonna propose. I had a ring already, I just hadn’t gotten around to that part yet. Hold on, I’ll go get them.”

Adam hurried upstairs and into the bedroom, pulling open the nightstand drawer. Inside, there rested a silver tray. To the left, there were three rings. First, Niall Lynch’s wedding band. Second, Aurora’s. Third, Aurora’s engagement ring. To the right, two new ones. Adam and Ronan’s. 

Gingerly, Adam extracted the three seasoned residents of the tray from their bed, splaying them over his palm and running his thumb along the surface of each of them. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, closing his eyes. This, Adam liked to think, was as close to prayer as he would ever come. “Thank you for him.”

The bedroom window was open, and the warm breeze that fluttered in, caressing Adam’s cheek, perfectly mimicked the gentility of Aurora’s fingertips. 

He smiled, and then opened his eyes, replacing the rings and extracting his own and Ronan’s instead, closing the drawer and turning to head back downstairs. 

When he reached the living room, Blue was standing, hand outstretched expectantly. 

Adam deposited the rings into her palm. 

Two things happened. 

First, both in contact with both bands, Adam’s skin brushed Blue’s. 

Second, Adam was inside Cabeswater. 

There was no momentary confusion or in-between, the way that there had sometimes been, in the past, when he’d scried. There was no heavy awareness of  _ Ronan _ , the way that there was when Adam was pulled into his dreams. 

It was just this. Just Adam and Cabeswater. The magician and his forest. 

Because he did not have Ronan to translate and because he still had a harder time with Latin than he cared to admit, the trees spoke to him in English. 

_ We have waited lifetimes _ , they told him. When he looked above himself, or around, the leaves and branches seemed to be swaying in perfect synchronicity. Almost like a dance.  _ We have waded through worlds for this union. Martyr and thief. Dreamer and illusionist. Magician and greywaren.  _

Adam ran his fingers up his own arm and came away with flower petals. They were blossoming, he realized, straight from his flesh. Marigolds and pansies and daisies, patterning his body like intricate ropework. 

_ We have crafted you the keys to your full potential. This is your first step to utilizing them. They have been unlocked now. Amplified. Learn them well. Apart, you are great. Together, you are  _ extraordinary.

Before he could ask what the hell any of  _ that  _ was about, Adam came back to himself on the floor. 

Well, only halfway on the floor, to be perfectly fair. His upper half was cradled against Ronan’s chest, and Blue and Gansey were standing over him, each with a hand on one shoulder. 

“What the fuck, Parrish?” Ronan asked, sounding very much like he’d been punched. 

“Sorry,” Adam choked out. His mouth felt like cotton. “Cabeswater. It.” 

He pushed himself back, delicately, from Ronan’s grasp to sit up on his own, tilting his head up to meet Blue’s eyes and clearing his throat. “We hadn’t gotten this far yet, but there are Cabeswater-specific phrases inside both rings. It told me to have Ronan’s engraved, and mine just showed up that way. I got that it wanted them to be a set, but I didn’t think anything else of it. Except, that was. That was you. Amplifying them.”

Slowly, Blue fisted her hand, bringing the rings together. “I don’t feel anything,” she said. “But I never do. What do you mean,  _ amplifying them _ ? What are they?”

Ronan equally confused, took Adam’s hand and waited. 

“Cabeswater said they were keys,” Adam relayed. “It said they were keys to our full potential, and that we had to learn to use them. That together, we’d be extraordinary. It also said it had been waiting, like, forever. For this.”

Eyes alight with the possibility of a new quest, a new adventure, Gansey lowered himself to the floor before Adam. “Adam,” he said, voice full of wonder. “Do you have any idea what it means? What it expects from the two of you?”

Adam shook his head. “No. That was all it gave me. But I kind of got the vibe that it wasn’t about specifics, you know? Just magic in general. And it said they’d been charged now, which I guess is what kind of flipped the ‘on’ switch. So thanks for that, Blue.”

As if the utterance of her name had drawn her downward, she joined Gansey, leaning back against the love seat they’d been occupying before. “Okay. This is all very important, and we’ll come back to it in just a minute—we will—but there is still a slightly more pressing matter at hand. We didn’t make it through the whole story.  _ Ronan  _ proposed?”

Ronan smirked, seemingly willing to deviate from this new impossibility long enough to give his mind time to wrap around it. “Yeah, well. I didn’t plan on it, but it was kind of my whole…deal. I brought up the ring as soon as I realized I’d brought it back with me, and then Adam felt obligated to tell me he already had one, and then I said—”

“Like an  _ asshole _ ,” Adam interjected, “he said since I’d had a ring longer, I should ask. And I told him that this was not  _ at all _ how I’d anticipated it going, and that I had a plan, so he said—”

“That we should stick with the plan,” Ronan supplied. “So. We went to Nino’s.”

“There was just. There was nowhere else that felt right,” Adam defended. 

Blue was glaring. Gansey was smiling dreamily. 

“We went to Nino’s,” Ronan repeated, “and since this was  _ Adam’s  _ plan, I thought he’d want to propose, but no. Apparently not.”

“I  _ never  _ said I didn’t want to, I said I wasn’t  _ ready  _ to,” Adam groaned, frustration evident in his tone. “I was still trying to work up to it when you told me you had  _ dreamed me a ring _ .”

“Whatever,” Ronan breezed. “So, he wasn’t having that, but we were already there, which meant one of us had to do it. I took one for the team.”

“God, you’re  _ so  _ generous.” Adam fell back, exasperated, onto the area rug. “Take him home with you. Please. And don’t bring him back.”

“You got engaged at  _ Nino’s? _ ” Blue, evidently, was still not past this. “Are you  _ fucking— _ ”

“I think it’s perfect,” Gansey said, in only the way Gansey could. He made it a fact. Inarguable. Unquestionable. “It’s where this came from. The two of you, this way. It started there, for all intents and purposes. I couldn’t have given you a better idea if you’d asked.”

Adam ducked his head and smiled, because that had been exactly his reasoning.

Blue made a gagging sound.

Ronan was silent.

When Adam turned to him to see why, he discovered that Ronan’s eyes were locked on Blue’s fist, still containing their rings.

From inside, there came a faint glow.

“My god,” Gansey said.

Blue looked down at her own hand, then, and reflexively opened it when she saw the radiance, dropping the rings to the floor. “Oh. Okay.  _ That’s  _ normal.”

“You’re like a power station,” Adam said, scooping up the rings. He wasn’t sure where the information was coming from, but he  _ knew  _ that if he held the rings together, nothing would happen. “It works for you because of your…frequency. You’re giving them—I don’t know— _ something.  _ Whatever it is that makes them do whatever it is they do. It won’t work for me. Not by myself. And it won’t work for Ronan either. But now that they’ve touched you and each other at the same time, if Ronan and I are both touching  _ both _ of them, something will happen. I don’t know what. I don’t know how I know. I just do.”

“Go on, then,” Gansey encouraged. He looked like a child on Christmas morning.

Adam was afraid, but more than that, he was enthralled—too curious to stop himself. He slipped his ring onto his finger, and handed Ronan’s to him to do the same. 

Ronan stared at it reluctantly for a moment, but finally put it on.

Adam faced him, taking his left hand so that the rings would collide.

There was no preamble. No hollowly disappointing, stuttering moment of,  _ maybe not _ . As soon as Adam’s fingers met Ronan’s, rings slotting together with an audible  _ clink _ , the room was bathed in blinding, white light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two posts in one day! I don't expect it to happen ever again, but I'm going to pretend it's possible.
> 
> Okay, this is quickly taking a very different turn than I initially anticipated, but I'm just going with the flow. This was what wanted to be written, so I obliged. At first, I was going to do these works as multiple parts of a series, but this just felt too much like a second chapter, so I guess we have a WIP on our hands. The next chapter should contain the wedding, if everything goes according to plan. Also, Opal is much more like a typical young child here than she is canonically, and Ronan is a lot softer with her than he is canonically, because I just can't get enough of parent!pynch. Don't @ me. (But if you can't stop yourself, my Tumblr is themagiciansthief.)
> 
> Stay tuned!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no scrape from a collision with a guard rail marring the side of this car. The hood was not smashed and the headlight was not busted out. It was not leaking any sort of fluid from the undercarriage. But it was, undeniably, Matthew’s. A rosary hung from the rearview mirror, along with a Black Ice scented air freshener in the shape of a tree. In the backseat, there was a faint, red stain from a strawberry slush Opal had spilled when she’d taken more interest in the styrofoam cup than its contents.  
> “What the fuck,” Ronan said again.  
> “I think,” Adam said, tentative, “that we’re supposed to take it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter tw: emetophobia. It’s not heavily detailed, but because my emetophilia sometimes wins out over my emetophobia (If you don’t believe it’s possible to have both, I’m urging you to just do a Google search. You will find out SO quickly how common it is. If it doesn’t make sense to you and you’d like to understand it, I’m totally open to chatting about it, but don’t be an asshole.) I gotta fuck Adam up a little bit every once in a while.

“‘Splain it.”

Adam peered into the grocery cart at Opal, reaching down to pull the hem of her dress back over the top of her boot so as not to expose her furry calf. “I…I don’t know how else to explain it, honey. It’s still something Kerah and I are trying to understand. Hey, count the apples for me? I can’t remember how many I picked up.”

“Six,” Opal told him, not bothering to look at the bag of honeycrisp apples to her left. “‘Splain it as good…as…as  _ well  _ as you can.”

“ _ Well.  _ Good job,” Adam praised, gently tapping the tip of her nose with his forefinger. He stopped the cart to pull a case of soda from the shelf, slotting it beneath the basket and pausing to count the apples on his way back up. There were six. “I’ve explained as much as we know already. If the rings are touching each other and Kerah and me at the same time, we get transported to the Other Place. Bodies and all—not like when we go to Cabeswater in our heads.”

Opal sighed, tugging at the purple hair tie holding her ponytail in place. “But you said there’s  _ nothing  _ there, Addie. That doesn’t sound like Kerah’s magic. Or yours. I wanna go in with you.”

“We have to make sure it’s safe first,” Adam said. He’d been telling her this for days, but he was patient, and he understood her need, as a dream creature, for things  _ beyond _ . “We don’t know for sure that there’s nothing there. We just haven’t  _ found _ anything yet. We’re still exploring.”

Opal opened the bag of grapes before her and pulled a few off the vine, then broke the vine off and stuck it in her mouth. “ _ I  _ can ‘splore,” she grumbled. 

Adam smiled softly. “You’re the best explorer I know. And you will be able to explore it, I promise. We just have to be sure there’s nothing there that’s dangerous for you first.”

“Gauze pads.”

“What?”

Adam’s phone rang. 

“Hello?” he asked, pulling the cart to the side of the aisle and resting a foot on the undercarriage. 

“Hey,” Ronan said. “Don’t lose your shit on me, but are we totally out of gauze? ‘Cause I think this is gonna need to be changed when we get home.”

Adam’s eyes flitted to Opal, who was watching him intently. 

“Uh. We’re still at the store, so I’ll grab some before we come get you. Wait, why would I lose my shit? Wait, wait, why does it need to be changed? You haven’t been bleeding anymore, we just put it on so your shirt wouldn’t catch—”

“Yeah, about that.” There was a loud sound on the other line, something like metal grinding against metal, and then Ronan said, very obviously not to Adam, “Jesus, kid, careful. You good?”

Adam heard what he thought was Matthew confirming.

“Ronan. Where are you?”

“With Matthew.”

Adam closed his eyes. “Yes. I was there when Matthew picked you up. Where are you and Matthew?”

“In the car.”

So faintly Adam almost couldn’t make it out, “You’re gonna have to tell him, Ro.”

“Tell me what?” Adam asked, heart dropping. “Ronan, give the phone to your brother.”

Ronan didn’t even attempt to protest. 

“Adam,” Matthew said.

Adam didn’t respond.

“Before I say anything else, I need you to know that we’re both fine.”

Adam gripped the handle of the cart to hold himself up. He knew what Matthew was going to say. Didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t move to hang up the phone.

“We, uh. We got in a little wreck. My fault. We hydroplaned and I kind of freaked and tried to fight it to straighten out, which, obviously, caused me to lose control of the car. It turned totally around and slammed through the guardrail on my side. Ronan’s bleeding again because he moved so fast to pull me out of my seat that some of the scabs ripped back open. It’s not bad. I can just see it soaking through in a couple places.”

Adam swallowed. He couldn’t speak. 

“I already called 911,” Matthew continued. “Someone will be here soon. Ronan said to just call a tow, but I thought you’d feel better if we were at least looked at by EMS. And I—I got the door open. I don’t really know why, it’s not like we were stuck. Ronan’s door’s fine. I don’t even really know why I told you that. Maybe I’m in shock?”

“Probably,” Adam managed. His voice sounded like nothing. He could feel himself trembling, but he was powerless to still it. “But you—you’re okay? He got you out of the way in time?”

“All good, man. Well, except the car, but that’s a small price to pay for not dying, right?”

“Where are you?”

Matthew relayed their location to Adam concisely.

Adam lifted Opal onto his hip and abandoned their cart full of groceries in the aisle, rushing toward the store’s exit, gauze pads forgotten.

When Adam arrived, Ronan and Matthew were both out of the car and leaning against the trunk, Matthew’s phone to his ear. 

Adam still hadn’t stopped shaking. He extracted himself from the BMW easily enough, but when he opened the back door and tried to unbuckle the straps on Opal’s seat, his fingers fumbled over the clasps.

Mostly because she was intuitive and a little because she was magic, she rested a hand over his and said, “It’s okay, Addie. I can do it.”

“Or I can.”

Adam turned, startled, and face-planted into Ronan’s chest.

He felt, more than heard, the rumbling of Ronan’s laughter against his deaf ear. “Smooth, Parrish.”

“Jesus,” Adam breathed as he stepped back, eyes sweeping over Ronan in his entirety, searching swiftly for injuries or abnormalities of any sort.

“I’m fine,” Ronan assured him, leaning forward to kiss his temple. “It’s okay. Take a breath.”

Adam did, as though now that Ronan was telling him what to do his body was back to functional operation, and Ronan ducked into the car to pull Opal out.

“Kerah?” she asked, resting a hand against his cheek. “Matty?”

“Right over there, baby doll,” Ronan told her, turning her around and pointing toward Matthew. “He’s just letting Dec know what’s going on.”

“How mad is he?” Adam asked, referring to Declan. Both Matthew and Matthew’s car were on his insurance policy.

“He’s been surprisingly chill about it,” Ronan said, taking Adam’s hand with the one that wasn’t balancing Opal. “I mean, it’s all covered, obviously, so. Not that big a deal.”

Adam started to respond, but before he could, he was cut off by sirens.

They were coming from a police cruiser, which parked directly behind Adam’s car. The ambulance following it was devoid of both lights  _ and _ sirens, which may have been due to the fact that they were traveling together, or maybe because Matthew had assured them that both he and Ronan were fully alert and unharmed. 

The officer who exited the car was short and heavyset, and Adam would have guessed him to be in his fifties. The EMT was a young woman with brown hair twisted into a bun and black, wire-rimmed glasses.

“Evening, gentlemen,” the officer said. His tone was light and friendly, in a way that felt genuine to Adam. “Which one of you is Matthew Lynch?”

“Matt!” Ronan called, beckoning Matthew, who had apparently failed to notice their newly acquired company, up the small hill.

_ Sorry, sorry _ , Matthew mouthed, holding up one finger to signal that he would only be a second.

“Sorry,” Ronan reiterated aloud. “He’s on the phone with our brother, trying to get the insurance company to send a tow truck. Uh, but I’m Ronan. I was in the car with him. This is my fiancé, Adam, and our daughter Opal.”

Adam’s knees came so, incredibly close to giving out.

The policeman didn’t miss a beat. He smiled, stuck out his hand for Adam to shake (both of Ronan’s were still occupied) and said, “I’m Officer Coswell. It’s nice to meet y’all. Wish it had been under better circumstances, but I suppose this comes with the territory.”

“Natalie,” said the EMT, stepping forward to shake Adam’s hand next. “Are you all right? You look more shaken up than he does.”

Ronan’s forefinger was tapping against the back of Adam’s hand. He was nervous, Adam realized. Still, after this many years out of Kavinsky’s circle, not used to having no reason to run from a cop.

“Yeah,” Adam responded breathily. “I’m just glad it wasn’t worse. Scared me to death.”

“Ah, shit,” Ronan said before Natalie could get another word in, and then, quickly, to Opal, “ _ Don’t _ . Parrish, you didn’t check out before you left the store, did you?”

Adam stared back at him incredulously. “Sorry, I was a little busy trying to process Matthew telling me he’d totalled his car with you both inside it.” 

“We’re never gonna hear the end of it if we don’t have everything Sargent told us to pick up by the time she gets in. I can hear her maggoty voice telling me to go to hell already. ‘The party is  _ tomorrow,  _ Ronan,  _ really _ ?’ We gotta go back. They’ll be here in—” Ronan paused to check his phone. “Two hours.”

“If we tell them you were in a  _ car wreck _ , Ronan—”

“Oh, no. Hell no. We’re telling Dick no such thing. I would never hear the end of it. He’d have me on supervised bedrest for a week.”

“He’s right,” Matthew said, appearing suddenly to Adam’s left. Probably, Adam guessed, it hadn’t been sudden to anyone else. He just hadn’t been able to hear it. “I vote not telling Dick and Jane. I’d dread tomorrow all night if I thought I was gonna have to deal with dad-level disappointment from him the whole time. And we’re fine. Right, Ro?”

“Yeah,” Ronan agreed, handing Opal over to Matthew as she reached for him. “We’re fine.”

“Well, I’ll be the ultimate judge of that,” Natalie said good-naturedly, “but you’re both walking and talking no problem, which already puts the outcome in your favor.”

“I gotta give you to Addie for a minute, sweetie,” Matthew told Opal. Briefly, Adam was grateful that Opal’s version of his name sounded so much like a homonym for ‘daddy.’ “This nice lady is gonna check us out and make sure we’re good to go home. But I’ll sit in the back with you when we leave, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Opal agreed, allowing herself to be transferred to Adam. He hoped they could get this over with quickly enough that it wouldn’t seem suspicious that they never put Opal down. Her boots threw her balance off too much to walk.

Officer Coswell ran through the technicalities with Matthew and Ronan while Natalie looked them over, and it was determined that, while Matthew was in a very mild state of shock, they were both physically unharmed for the most part. Ronan’s left ankle was slightly swollen from bracing himself against the floorboard, and Matthew had a surface graze along his right shoulder from being pulled so roughly against Ronan’s seat, but that was the extent of it. Somehow, Ronan got away with keeping his jacket on.

Natalie informed them of what to look out for, and told them to be sure to seek medical attention if any new symptoms appeared in the next couple of days, but that, unless they had any other concerns, they were free to go.

Ronan, because he was Ronan, insisted on driving. Adam insisted on Ronan kissing his ass and refused to hand over the keys.

“Am I taking you home, Matt?” he asked once he’d pulled off the shoulder, looking up to the rear view mirror to meet Matthew’s eyes. “I’d kind of rather not, if you didn’t have plans or anything. I know I’m paranoid, but I’d be more comfortable keeping an eye on both of you.”

“That’s fine,” Matthew assured him with an easy, amiable smile. “I do need clothes for tomorrow, though. And my phone charger. And my toothbrush. Can we stop by my apartment?”

“We’re still going to the store,” Ronan interjected. “I don’t care if you’re driving.”

Adam groaned. “Apartment, shopping, Barns. Happy?”

Ronan smirked. “As a lark.”

* * *

They made it back to Singer’s Falls in time for Blue and Gansey to arrive by the skin of their teeth. As they were pulling into the driveway of the house, Adam’s phone chimed to alert him that he had a text. 

**Blue**  
**6:58 pm**  
_ Hey, just wanted to let you know we’re about two minutes out so you’re not doing anything gross when we get there. See you sooooon _

“Gansey?” Ronan asked. 

Adam shut off the car and nodded in confirmation, because it was practically true. 

“If you guys wanna get groceries, I’ve got her,” Matthew said, referring to Opal, who was fast asleep in her seat. 

“Thank you,” Adam breathed. He was exhausted, though not in the general sense that usually followed an eight hour shift at work and the hour of driving each way that it entailed. This, he assumed, was the adrenaline in his body finally depleting after being keyed up so highly when Ronan had called. It felt like a physical pull, dragging him downward toward unconsciousness. 

Adam and Ronan carried groceries into the house, trailed by Matthew carrying Opal, and the sound of tires on gravel permeated the comfortable silence not a moment later.

“I’m gonna run her upstairs,” Matthew announced. “So she doesn’t wake up when they come in. Be right back.”

Adam was sliding a glass, gallon jug full of milk that Ronan had freshly strained out of his way to make room in the fridge for the watermelon he was holding when he felt a hand on his lower back. He jolted, surprised, and then eased the watermelon onto the shelf, closing the door and turning to face Ronan. 

At the corners of his mouth, there were small, concerned lines. “You feelin’ okay? Been really quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Adam assured him, though he couldn’t keep himself from leaning into Ronan’s arms, forehead against his neck. “Just really tired.”

“You can crash early if you need to,” Ronan told him, one hand traveling absently up and down the expanse of his spine. “I can keep these assholes entertained.”

“Hey,” a new voice said, offended. Blue. Adam hadn’t even heard the door open. “Who are you calling assholes?”

“You,” Ronan told her, pulling back but keeping hold of Adam’s hand. “And Dick.”

“And me,” Matthew added, reappearing at the top of the steps. 

“Oh, Matt’s here!” Blue gasped excitedly. “You’re forgiven. Or, I don’t know, maybe you’re not, but how can anyone be angry with him around?”

Matthew laughed and took the stairs two at a time, allowing Blue in all her lack of height to squeeze him tightly enough around the waist to lift him a quarter inch off the ground and spin him in a circle. 

“Where’s your car?” she asked, setting him back on his feet. 

Not unlike his brother, Matthew preferred not to lie. Not unlike his brother, his version of not lying included the act of partial omission. Matthew said, “Oh, Ro and I had to go meet with a dj friend of mine to see about music for the wedding. I came back with him.” Technically, the entire statement was true. It just wasn’t the entire true statement. 

If Blue realized this, she didn’t say so. Instead, she clapped her hands together, turning back toward the others. “Pre-engagement party step one: Gansey and I need to start food prep. As long as my loyal servants have honored my list, I should have everything I need.”

“Y’all don’t have to do everything,” Adam told her, resting heavily against Ronan’s side. “I can bread chicken as well as the next guy. Or whatever else, you know. Just tell me what to do.”

“Go to bed.” To Adam’s surprise, this came from Gansey. “You look…I don’t mean any offense by this, Adam, but are you well?”

Adam glanced from Gansey to Ronan. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“‘Cause you look like you’ve been stepped on,” Ronan told him. “By a semi.”

“You kind of do,” Matthew chimed in, pushing himself up onto the counter.

Adam snorted, but there wasn’t enough fight in him to push Ronan away. “Thanks. Real sweet of you.” He felt fine overall, which, truthfully, was more confusing to him than it would’ve been if he hadn’t. He wasn’t feverish or achy. His head didn’t hurt. He could just fall asleep standing up.

“How about this?” Blue bargained, already reaching above the sink for a cutting board. She was wasting no time, apparently. “How about you just go lay down on the couch? That way you’re not totally alienated from the rest of us and we can still put you to work if we need you.”

Adam smiled gratefully at her. “Yeah, okay. That seems fair, I guess.”

“I’ll be right back,” Ronan said. “Gotta make sure there’s someone readily available to say no if you ask for help.”

Blue flipped him off.

Adam wanted to tell him that he didn’t need an escort to his own living room, but he didn’t. Just let Ronan guide him through the house and then ease him onto the couch. 

“You’re worrying me, Parrish. I mean it, if something’s going on, you’d better tell me.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Adam said, reaching out for Ronan’s fingers. “I’m just really—”

“Tired, yeah. I got that. But this is off the charts, even for your normal  _ Adam Parrish is always tired  _ tired.” Ronan knelt in the floor next to him, retrieving a discarded throw pillow from next to the coffee table and slipping it under Adam’s head.

“Funny how you spent the last two hours trying to convince me you were fine and now—” Adam stopped, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Shit. Your back.”

“Oh,” Ronan said, like he’d genuinely forgotten. “It’s all right. I can’t even feel it. We’ll worry about it later. You just get some rest. And if you wake up feeling bad or something, just yell. This is…weird. You can agree with that, at least, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Adam echoed. “Yeah, it’s weird.”

Ronan studied him for a moment longer, and then, because it was not yet an act that he was fully familiar with consciously avoiding, he pushed into the touch of Adam’s fingertips, clasping their left hands together.

* * *

Inside the Other Place, it was white. 

It had been white every time so far. The first time, nearly a month ago, when Gansey and Blue had been visiting and they’d discovered what the rings could do, it had been nearly blinding to Adam. He had adjusted to some degree at this point, but the stark brightness was still something of a shock.

They’d allowed themselves a handful of intentional instances to explore the emptiness since then, and what they’d discovered, as Adam had told Opal earlier, was nothing. No matter how far they trekked in any direction, there was absolutely nothing. There were no walls. There was no ceiling. There wasn’t even a floor—just a vast, unending plane of absence.

Until now.

Before them, settled atop the nothingness, as their own feet were, was a perfect replica of Matthew Lynch’s car. 

“What the fuck,” Ronan said.

Because he had to, Adam stepped forward and touched it. The tangibility was almost startling. He had half expected his fingers to slip through its surface entirely, but when he pulled on the driver’s door handle, which he found unlocked, it swung effortlessly open. There was no scrape from a collision with a guard rail marring the side of this car. The hood was not smashed and the headlight was not busted out. It was not leaking any sort of fluid from the undercarriage. But it was, undeniably, Matthew’s. A rosary hung from the rearview mirror, along with a Black Ice scented air freshener in the shape of a tree. In the backseat, there was a faint, red stain from a strawberry slush Opal had spilled when she’d taken more interest in the styrofoam cup than its contents.

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” Ronan said again. 

“I think,” Adam said, tentative, “that we’re supposed to take it out.”

* * *

It was a more difficult process than it should have been, considering that Ronan regularly removed things from his dreams. The primary trouble was that they couldn’t exactly reappear in the living room of the Barns with a car in tow. Adam’s concern with this was that it wouldn’t fit. Ronan’s was that Gansey and Blue would undoubtedly start asking questions. Secondly, they’d never taken something from this place before, and they weren’t entirely sure what the logistics would come down to. But one problem at a time.

They resolved that the only option was to return to the house, go outside (preferably behind one of the larger barns, so as to hide the car more easily) and try again.

Ronan took Adam’s hand.

Back on the couch, Adam sat up. Apart from the light that accompanied the shift, there was no tell when they were coming and going, so, from what he could determine, no one had even noticed they were gone. 

“Why are we gonna say we’re going out?” he asked, hushed.

“Because you’ve started feeling sick and you need some air,” Ronan said. Because Ronan didn’t lie, this was derived from truth. Adam had told him the first couple of times, after they’d come back, that having his entire body transported elsewhere was disorienting enough to make him nauseous, and, admittedly, this time was no exception.

He sighed. “Fine.”

They made their way back out to the kitchen, Ronan’s arm around Adam’s waist, and, inevitably, were stopped in their tracks. Matthew was the first comment.

“Whoa,” he said, so genuinely taken aback that it made Adam want to search for a mirror. “You look even worse, dude.”

“I’m not feelin’ too hot,” Adam said, swallowing a little too convincingly. “We’re gonna step outside for a minute.”

“Good thinking,” Blue said. Her tone was teasing, and she followed up with, “I don’t wanna have to hear it if you puke.” Then, softer, “Seriously, are you okay? Or do you think you will be by tomorrow, at least?”

This made him feel just guilty enough for his heart to twist, but he brushed it off and answered, “I’ll be golden by tomorrow. Promise.”

Ronan led him outside. 

They made their way through the fields and around the various buildings until they reached a long, low barn so close to the treeline that they weren’t sure until they were behind it if the car would fit.

“Ready?” Ronan asked.

Adam touched their rings together.

* * *

The car was still there when they arrived, which was a relief. Adam hadn’t expected that it would be gone, but he didn’t know the mechanics or possibilities of this place.

“Okay,” Ronan said. “Now what? We can bring shit  _ in  _ if we’re both touching it.” They could—they’d experimented with a rock, a comb, and a book, so far. It had worked every time, which was why Adam had promised to bring Opal with them soon. “Should we just try the same thing to take it out?”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t have a better plan.”

They wasted no time, each laying a hand against the roof of the car and then transporting themselves back.

The car was there, in the grass, under their touch. It was unscathed, and not a single detail had changed.

Ronan took a step back, considering. “I don’t have to be asleep. I’m getting the feeling we can’t just fabricate shit, but if we  _ need _ something, we can go get it. And I don’t have to spend  _ hours  _ trying to fall asleep first. That’s fucking majorly convenient.”

“I think that’s what was going on before,” Adam said, sitting down and leaning back against the barn. They’d never come and gone in such quick succession before, and he was more than a little nauseous now. “I think I was so tired because it was draining energy from me, trying to get my attention. Maybe if there’s something we’re supposed to take out, that’s how I’ll know.”

“You got the shit end of that stick,” Ronan chuckled, sitting down next to him and ruffling his hair. “But if it’s running directly off  _ your  _ energy—the place, I mean, not the taking stuff from it; pretty sure me being the fuckin’ greywaren is the reason you can’t just do it on your own—it would make sense that you feel so crappy afterward and I don’t. I think you’re powering it.”

Adam closed his eyes. “I don’t want you to be right about this.”

“We shouldn’t do it two times that close together, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna veto ever doing that again.”

“You need to throw up?”

Adam sighed, because he didn’t want to, but nodded, because he also didn’t want to spend the rest of the night unable to hang out with Blue and Gansey and Matthew if he was going to have to smell food the whole time. 

“Come on,” Ronan said, and helped him stand, and then helped him walk about twenty feet into the forest, and then held him up while he doubled over and vomited into the leaves. 

His eyes and nose and throat all mildly burned when he was done, but that was the extent of it. He was no longer overwhelmingly exhausted, and he felt almost hungry—which was reasonable, he realized; he hadn’t eaten since his lunch break at noon. 

“Good?” Ronan asked, tucking Adam’s head briefly under his chin. 

“Good,” Adam confirmed. 

They went back inside. 

He must have been noticeably more pale or more sweaty or more  _ something _ , because as soon as Gansey met his eyes, he asked, “Were you sick, Adam?”

“Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I feel a lot better now, though. Think it was just a fluke thing.”

Ronan let him go and crossed the floor to the fridge, extracting a bottle of ginger ale and handing it to him. Adam realized it was mostly for show, but appreciated it either way, and took a long, slow drink. 

“Strange,” Blue said. She sounded almost suspicious. Almost. 

“So your mom’s bringing pie, right?” Adam asked, quickly diverting them from the subject at hand. 

For the sake of pie, Blue allowed herself to be distracted. 

* * *

Opal woke around ten, calling for Gansey when she heard him laughing, so he brought her downstairs. He, Blue, and Matthew made up a bed of pillows and blankets in the living room floor while Adam discreetly tended to Ronan’s back under the guise that they were just getting changed, and then they turned on Bambi, which was Opal’s favorite movie. Blue had done all she could in the kitchen until tomorrow morning, when the actual cooking would take place, so they all curled around each other—Opal on Matthew’s lap, Ronan and Gansey on either side of them with Adam and Blue lying against their chests—and drifted in and out of wakefulness until Blue shook Gansey’s shoulder and reminded him that they’d opted to leave their bags in the car when they’d arrived, and that they needed them to properly get ready for bed. 

Sleepily, Gansey followed her lead, allowing her to drag him up from the floor and out of the room. 

Opal was out cold, which made it the perfect opportunity to speak to Matthew alone. 

“Hey,” Adam said, voice low. 

Matthew looked down at him. 

“We have a surprise for you. If you think you can get away with sneaking outside without Blue and Gans asking any questions, you can go see it tonight, but you might wanna wait ‘til in the morning.”

Matthew’s features shifted, and Adam was reminded suddenly of the Matthew from their teenage years, excited for nothing more than to see another day. He hadn’t changed much, but the giddiness had shifted to something more muted, like a perpetual state of happiness and optimism. “You can’t just say something like that and expect me not to be curious. Are you gonna tell me if I don’t go see what it is, or do I have to wait?”

“Let Declan know he doesn’t need to worry about getting you a rental,” Ronan said, half his mouth curled into a smile. 

Matthew’s brow furrowed. He blinked. “A. A car? You guys were gone for, like, ten minutes. I don’t understand.”

“We think we’re finally starting to understand how the whole thing with the rings works. Or what it’s for,” Adam told him. “We think it gives us things when we need them immediately and Ronan doesn’t have time to dream them up. It’s, uh. It’s your car. A perfect replica. But not wrecked.”

Matthew’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the door creaked open and then closed and Blue and Gansey were returning to the room. 

“Are we having a sleepover?” Blue asked, plopping back down onto the blanket palette. “Or should we all go get in separate beds like the adults we’re supposed to be?”

Adam secured one arm more tightly around Ronan’s waist, reaching over to gently stroke back Opal’s hair with the other. “I don’t know about anyone else,” he said, “but I’m good right here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo...I lied! This is not the wedding. Obviously.  
> The timeline of this thing is an absolute mess, so in case anyone needs clarification: installment one was the night before installment two, this chapter is set a couple weeks later, and chapter four will immediately follow this one with the engagement party. I really wasn’t planning on this being so in-depth or so long but I guess it just wants to feel something like an actual story??? So pushy, ugh.  
> Opal knowing Ronan was gonna call about gauze wasn’t anything weirder than usual for her, but I feel like I didn’t preface that well. She’s just a little dream thing and she’s very attached to her dreamer and sometimes these things happen ok get off my ass  
> This is honestly just a lot of fluff and I probably could’ve skipped it, but it was what came to my brain so I figured it’d be a waste not to use it. But! Now we have somewhat definitive reasoning for the ring thing, although I don’t think this is all they can do…  
> Stay tuned! (And drop a comment or hmu on Tumblr at themagiciansthief if you have any suggestions/requests!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, Adam should have anticipated this. Gansey had probably had his moment to lose it on Matthew when he discovered they’d been in a wreck, but once he’d gotten it through his head that they truly hadn’t been hurt, he would’ve let that go quickly enough.  
> Not this, though.  
> Richard Campbell Gansey III, their leader elect, their king, had been left in the dark about a significant detail regarding the first large, magical discovery they’d made in years. He wasn’t pissed, Adam could see now, closely regarding the small lines next to his eyes and mouth. He was crushed.  
> It was so much more difficult to defend yourself against someone who wasn’t throwing punches.

Adam woke with a stiffness in his neck and Ronan wrapped around him like a vice, pinning him to his body. Next to them, Opal was still sleeping, as was Blue. Matthew and Gansey were gone.

“Ro,” Adam said, and then cleared his throat and tried again.

Ronan woke slowly and calmly, which was an unusual feat for him, and blinked down at Adam, lips brushing his hair. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam assured him. “But Matt and Gans are both up. Kinda afraid that, uh—”

“Oh, shit.”

Carefully, so as not to disturb the girls, Adam disentangled himself and then pulled Ronan to his feet. 

It was daylight, but not by much. The sun was still soft and golden. Adam guessed it was nearing seven o’clock. 

The house was silent. Adam wouldn’t have put it past Matthew to have gotten up in the middle of the night to go lie down upstairs, but he knew better than to think Gansey would do such a thing. Unless he couldn’t sleep. Then, he might’ve gone—

“Outside,” Ronan said. 

They pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch, where they were immediately greeted by the white dream fawn that had never grown in her nearly ten years of existence. 

Adam laughed breathily, resting a hand on her nose. She was unnaturally soft, and when he pulled away, his skin smelled like flowers. “Do you know where they went?” he asked her.

She blew out a hot breath against his arm and did not answer, because she couldn’t speak, nor could she understand him.

“Parrish,” Ronan said, drawing Adam’s attention away from the deer. His finger was outstretched, and Adam followed the direction of it with his eyes, landing on a blanket spread across a small section of the field to the far right of them.

Atop it sat Gansey and Matthew, both drinking coffee, from what Adam could tell.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Okay. This is good, right? Car’s in the totally opposite direction.”

“Unless he’s already found it and Matt’s already told him everything,” Ronan considered. 

Adam had been considering it, too; he’d just been doing it silently. He didn’t want to think about the implications of Gansey finding out it had happened _yesterday_ and they’d collectively opted not to tell him. 

Well, Adam thought, with just a _twinge_ of annoyance, because he’d be just as much on the chopping block as Ronan would, _he_ hadn’t actually opted not to do anything. But he had followed along, which no one had forced him into, so. Guilty enough.

“We have to go find out, don’t we?”

Ronan made a displeased sound, took Adam’s hand, and led him down from the porch and into the field.

The grass was wet with the dew of the early morning, and neither of them had bothered to put on shoes, but Adam didn’t mind. Summer meant the days were starting to heat up early enough for the cool moisture to feel refreshing against his bare skin.

As soon as Matthew caught sight of them, he raised his arm to wave, which prompted Gansey to turn toward them as well.

He nodded once in a reserved, curt greeting.

Fuck.

When they reached the blanket, Ronan pulled Adam down onto it, and Matthew cast them such a guilty expression Adam didn’t even bother asking.

“Before you get too angry,” Matthew said, “he got up before I did and found the car on his own. I was too off my game to make something up by the time I caught up to him, still half-asleep and all, so I figured I should probably just tell the truth and not dig us an even deeper grave.”

Gansey was silent.

Adam did not feel that this was his apology to make, so he was silent, too.

Ronan sighed, with just a touch of dramatic flair. “I just didn’t want you to freak out. It was fine. It _is_ fine. We’re both—”

“Fine,” Gansey finished coolly. “Yes, Ronan, I expect that you are.”  
He was in a real mood if he was going to make Ronan pry conversation out of him.

Ronan fell back against the blanket, propping his legs over Adam’s, and scrubbed a hand across his face. “You and Sargent organized this whole shindig for today. I didn’t want you to have to worry about anything else. I didn’t wake up and realize I had whiplash or anything, if that makes you feel better. It really wasn’t a big deal.”

Gansey took a breath, which meant he was trying to calm himself down enough to keep his composure when he spoke again. Then, carefully: “You figured out what the rings were for and you didn’t tell me.”

_Oh._

Really, Adam should have anticipated this. Gansey had probably had his moment to lose it on Matthew when he discovered they’d been in a wreck, but once he’d gotten it through his head that they truly hadn’t been hurt, he would’ve let that go quickly enough.

Not this, though.

Richard Campbell Gansey III, their leader elect, their _king_ , had been left in the dark about a significant detail regarding the first large, magical discovery they’d made in years. He wasn’t pissed, Adam could see now, closely regarding the small lines next to his eyes and mouth. He was crushed.

It was so much more difficult to defend yourself against someone who wasn’t throwing punches.

“Gans,” he said, soft. “We were going to tell you. Just not about the car. We would’ve told you we’d figured it out at a different time, maybe—a different _way_ , but we never would have kept it from you.”

“Wouldn’t you have?” Gansey murmured, and Adam felt the air leave his lungs. It wasn’t malicious or biting. Gansey sounded like a disappointed father, which was a thousand times worse. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Ronan spat, pushing himself back up so quickly Adam didn’t have time to react. “It was _my_ choice. I didn’t want to tell you about the wreck, which meant we didn’t tell you about the car. Adam wanted to, but I said no. Don’t you dare throw that shit at him. We’re not kids anymore, _Dick_.”

“Okay,” Matthew interjected. “That’s enough. Listen, man, none of us should’ve kept it from you, all right? We know, and we’re sorry. But Adam really did try to get us to tell you. Don’t take it out on him.” He was clearly confused, aware that there was something to this below surface level, something he didn’t understand, but Ronan was so tense that Adam watched him consciously make the decision to force it to drop. “Coffee?” he asked instead, offering his mug to Adam, who took it gratefully. 

It was lukewarm, and a little sweet for Adam’s liking, but he felt the caffeine hitting him with near immediacy, waking him up with a pleasant, tingling sensation. “Thanks,” he said sincerely, handing it back without offering it to Ronan, who wouldn’t have considered the beige substance inside the cup coffee to save his life.

“No worry he’s contagious, then,” Gansey noted, and, god, apparently the hits were just going to keep coming. Adam wasn’t sure Gansey had figured out _exactly_ what had happened last night, but he clearly understood that Adam hadn’t actually been sick and that the reaction was, somehow, related to the Other Place. To be fair, he hadn’t explained this to Matthew, so either the kid was generally perceptive or actually not worried about the possibility of contagion.

“No,” Adam answered, warring with himself to hold an even tone. “No, that was a side effect of coming and going. It drains me every time, but we’d never done it back to back like that before. Got a little worse than usual, I guess. I’m fine now.”

Gansey hummed noncommittally. 

Ronan looked ready to deck him.

It had been a long time since he’d been this passive aggressive toward Adam, but if there was one thing Adam Parrish was good at, it was ignoring instigation. He just rested a hand on Ronan’s arm and squeezed, physically pleading him not to start anything and mentally pleading himself not to. 

“You could be utilizing Blue,” Gansey said. _Blue_. Not Jane. Now he was pissed. “You know she amplifies your energy, Adam. If you’d told her, she could have helped you.”

Adam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. _Don’t._ “Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed. “I should have, but I didn’t. Here we are. If she’s around next time, I’ll ask her.”

“Will you?”

Adam snapped. 

“ _Yes,_ Gansey, _Jesus,_ what do you want? I’m _sorry_. Okay? I’m sorry we didn’t call you when Ronan got hurt, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about the wreck, I’m sorry we didn’t let you know as soon as we realized what was going on with the rings. Fuck. Do you want to get into what this is really about? Because we can.”

Ronan’s eyes gleamed with pride at Adam standing his ground. Matthew looked inherently uncomfortable.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Gansey said.

“Oh, come _on_ . Don’t play stupid. It really doesn’t suit you. It’s been, what, _seven_ years? And it’s never happened again. Never. It’s not like it’s something I can just—”

“It doesn’t _matter_ that it’s never happened again, Adam. The point is that it happened at all. How do you _know_ you can’t if you’ve never—”

“I was leaving for school!” Adam was shouting now. He could feel himself doing it, and he hated it, and he sounded like his father, but he couldn’t help it. “I was terrified, and confused, and I didn’t have time to pile another thing on top of the mountain of shit already going on in my life! Ronan was _with me_ when it happened or I probably wouldn’t have told him either!”

“Oh, no. No, I think you would have.”

“Oh my _god_ . Are you _jealous_ ? Is that what this is? It’s not that I didn’t tell you, it’s just that I _did_ tell someone else? How are you not over this? We’re _adults_ , for god’s sake!”

“I _was_ over it. I _would be_ over it,” Gansey said, “if it didn’t feel so much like a trend. I was a little shaken to hear that it was ultimately Ronan and Matthew’s decision to keep this from me, if I’m being honest. You’re the only one I would have expected it from.”

Adam felt the air off Ronan’s fist as it shot out to connect with Gansey’s jaw.

He hadn’t seen Ronan hit anyone—Declan included, shockingly—since before he’d finished undergrad. But no one had so directly targeted Adam in front of him in even longer. He should’ve seen it coming. To be the magician, his foresight was surprisingly poor. 

To Ronan’s credit, he left it at that, which was leaps and bounds more restraint than he ever would have shown as a teenager. Just reclined back onto his elbows and gazed, unconcerned, toward the treeline. 

It hadn’t been hard enough to knock Gansey down, only to shake him, and he sat, still and silent, left hand over his lower cheek. 

Adam held his breath.

Matthew did the same.

When Gansey spoke, after a long, long moment, his voice was brimming with genuine shame. “I am so sorry, Adam. Truly. You’re absolutely right. It’s so far in the past now that I—I should never have—I don’t know what came over me. I know you would never intentionally exclude me from something like this.”

 _He’s afraid he’s losing us_ , Adam realized suddenly, all the fight draining out of him. _He’s afraid we’re going to get married and leave him behind._

“It’s fine,” Adam told him quietly, and meant it. 

“Sorry for rocking your shit,” Ronan said, sounding so much like his high school self for a moment that Adam almost laughed despite the situation, “but apparently you still need it from time to time.”

“No harm done,” Gansey assured him, and then revised, “Not permanently, anyway. I think it was perfectly warranted. Thank you for still knowing when to put me in my place.”

“Is anybody else hungry?” Matthew chimed in, once he’d determined that it was safe to speak. “I’m starving.”

* * *

Back in the living room, Blue was awake, sitting with her back against the couch and cradling a still-sleeping Opal in her arms. “Hey,” she said cheerily, and then, upon catching sight of Gansey’s already bruising face, “Oh, god, what did you _do_ ?”  
“Um,” Gansey said.

“I punched him,” Ronan informed her.

Blue laughed. Then, when she realized no one else was laughing, stopped. “Come again?”

“I deserved it,” Gansey supplied. “We have a lot to discuss, Jane. Breakfast?”

Rather than cooking, because it was all they’d be doing for the rest of the morning, they opted to go out.

Everyone dressed and split into their designated vehicles, and Matthew very pointedly climbed into the backseat of the BMW rather than retrieving his car from behind the barn, so as to give Gansey ample time to offer Blue an explanation. 

When they arrived at IHOP, Adam stepped almost cautiously out of the car to collect Opal from her seat, unsure what Blue’s reaction would be to everything she’d undoubtedly learned on the drive. 

“You’re an asshole for not telling us you wrecked, or about the second car,” he heard, from what sounded like an incredible distance with his left ear toward her. She must have been speaking to Ronan. “Gansey’s a bigger asshole for saying what he said to Adam. You’re almost on par for hitting him, but whether we know Adam can defend himself or not, none of us has ever been very good at letting him take shit from anyone—especially each other—so I don’t blame you.”

“Great to know I’m off the hook, Sargent,” Ronan said, which meant he felt like he was in safe enough territory to respond to her with sarcasm but was still apologetic enough not to call her ‘maggot.’

“Addie?” Opal asked sleepily, yawning and resting her head against Adam’s shoulder as he knocked the door shut with his hip. 

“What, sweetheart?”

“Can I get…strawberry pancakes? And bacon? And eggs? And French toast? And—”

Adam laughed, cutting her off with a kiss to the top of her head. “You can pick a couple of those things, but I think you’re goin’ a little overboard. Ronan?”

Ronan was checking his phone—a rare sight—but slipped it back into his pocket and looked up to meet Adam’s eyes. “Sorry, just Declan making sure he knew when the party was starting for the fiftieth fucking time. What’s up?”

“Can you take her and go get a table? I’m gonna—I need to talk to Gans for a minute.”

Ronan cocked a brow but didn’t comment, easing Opal from Adam’s arms into his own and gesturing with his head for Matthew to follow them inside. 

He wasn’t about to tell Blue what to do, but she trailed after them anyway, clearly comprehending that Adam wanted to be alone with Gansey. 

“Adam—” he started, as soon as everyone else had entered the building. 

Adam raised a hand to silence him. “Just—let me. Please. You know you’re not disposable to us, right?”

Gansey cast his eyes to the pavement and said nothing. 

“You’re what brought us together, man. _All_ of us. I’m not just talking about me and Ronan. And I need you to realize that we’re not just gonna—I don’t know, pair off and _leave_ you.”

Gansey did not look up.

Adam sighed, reaching out to clap a hand on his shoulder. “We love you. You’re never gonna be less important to us than we are to each other. I’m sorry Ronan’s an ass, and I’m sorry he—I’m sorry he still feels like he needs to solve things with violence sometimes, and I’m sorry he still thinks he has to protect me. I’m sorry if I overreacted. I’m sorry for everything we didn’t tell you. I meant that. And I know you’re sorry, too. And I meant it when I said it was fine. It’s over.”

Finally, blessedly, Gansey met his gaze. “Thank you,” he said, as though Adam had just lifted an anvil of his chest. 

“Come on,” Adam told him, offering him a small smile and squeezing his shoulder before letting his hand drop. “They _will_ order without us, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not comfortable leaving any decisions about what I’m going to be consuming to the liberty of Blue and Ronan.”

“A fair concern,” Gansey conceded, grinning timidly back at Adam and stepping ahead of him to pull open the door of the restaurant. 

It was oddly empty inside, and they found the others easily, sliding into their respective places next to Opal (who had opted to sit beside Blue) and Matthew (who was not on the inside of the booth, because Ronan just _had_ to be).

They ordered far too many pancakes and a near lethal amount of coffee (which Opal almost got her hands on—Adam had never been more grateful to Blue in his life) and ate it all quickly enough to wager that they’d collectively die in the following five minutes. 

Gansey insisted on paying for everyone, which Adam vehemently disputed (to no avail), and they headed back to the Barns to begin throwing together the engagement party (or what Ronan was affectionately referring to as _house arrest_ , because Adam assured him every time he asked that he could not, in fact, disappear into the woods midway through).

It was ten to ten o’clock when they returned, which meant they had just over three hours to prepare. 

Matthew took Opal upstairs to keep her out of the way, Adam followed Blue into the kitchen, and Ronan led Gansey to the basement to retrieve the few extra chairs he kept in storage. 

To Blue’s credit, there wasn’t much actual decorating to be done. Once they’d gotten all the food to a point that it could be left to its own devices for a while, she did insist that Adam help her string a few sets of globe lights from one of her bags across some of the doorways (“You know it’s daylight, right?” “Would you just shut up and listen to me for once in your life? This is definitely why we didn’t work out.”), but otherwise, she allowed the house to be left mostly alone. It was rustic and charming enough on its own, she said. 

Adam had seen it that way, too, once. Now it just looked like home. 

They’d decided on a large, traditional country feast, so once all the chicken had been fried and potatoes had been mashed, cornbread baked and corn cobs boiled, fruit sliced and sweet tea mixed, Adam made sure Blue didn’t need him for anything else and headed up to the bedroom to change. 

To his surprise, he found Ronan seated on the edge of the bed, holding a photograph of Aurora and Niall in one hand, his rosary in the other. 

“Oh,” Adam said softly. “Hey. Sorry, just let me know when you’re done and I’ll come back.”

“You’re good,” Ronan told him, placing both items on the bedside table and holding his hands out for Adam. “I wasn’t praying. Just—I don’t know, talking to them, I guess. Not out loud, but. I don’t really think the technicalities matter much when someone’s dead.”

Adam crossed the floor to him and took his hands, kneeling on the carpet before him. “I was doing that a couple weeks ago,” he admitted. “Talking to them. The night we first showed the rings to Blue and Gansey, when I came up to get them, I—I took your parents’ rings out for a second and just, you know. Thanked them. For you.”

Ronan stared for a long moment, and then pulled Adam off the ground and onto his lap, leaning his forehead against the crook of Adam’s neck. “I love you, Parrish,” he said, muffled. “And they would’ve loved you. Mom _did_ , the one time she met you, but that wasn’t—it was different. Wish they’d gotten to know you. They’d be trying like hell to talk you out of this.”

Adam laughed, fingers coming up to scratch idly at the back of Ronan’s head. “Doubtful. Your mom knew, even then. I think they’d see how happy you make me and realize you’re not as much of a shit as everybody thinks.”

“Careful,” Ronan chastised, straightening to kiss Adam’s forehead. “I’ve got a reputation.”

“Oh, you’re still a shit,” Adam assured him, catching his mouth this time. “You just have a redeeming quality or two.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“Like…you’re a great lay,” Adam said, grinning against Ronan’s lips. “ _Great_. God.”

“You’ve got the world’s worst timing,” Ronan groaned, pushing up against Adam’s thigh, just because he could. “Can’t blame you, though. You need it, don’t you?”

This had gone very, very quickly from light, playful flirting to something else entirely, and Adam felt all the blood drain from his face, fleeing to occupy other areas. “Yeah,” he admitted, because there was no point in denying it. “But we’ve got shit to do right now, so.”

“You know I can make it fast,” Ronan offered, hand pushing up Adam’s shirt to rest against his lower back. 

Adam shivered. “I can’t. If we got started, I’d—just—not right now.”

“Okay,” Ronan agreed easily, ghosting a kiss over his temple and patting his thigh to indicate that he stand. “Can I dress myself, or do you not trust me?”

“You can do what you want,” Adam said with a shrug, climbing to his feet, “but you’ll have to answer to Gansey for it.”

Ronan shuddered. “You’re right. Not worth it.”

They dressed hastily—Ronan in a short sleeved, black button-down, Adam in a cuffed, white one, both in nice jeans—and made their way back downstairs just in time for the doorbell—which no one ever used—to ring.

“I got it!” Blue called, from somewhere out of eyesight. 

The doorbell-ringer, it turned out, was Helen Gansey. Blue was leading her into the kitchen, in enough chiffon to look like she was attending a show at the Ritz rather than an engagement party full of people she’d known for ten plus years, along with a box that looked suspiciously like it held a cake. 

“Adam,” she greeted, placing it on the counter and stepping forward to take one of his hands in both of hers, sweeping a kiss over his cheek. “You look lovely.” She stepped back. Paused. Then, “Ronan.”

“Dick two and a half.”

Helen made a face like she’d tasted something sour. 

Adam rolled his eyes and elbowed Ronan in the ribs. 

“Helen brought cake,” Blue said, confirming Adam’s suspicions. “Each tier is two flavors. We figured it could be kind of like a tasting. If you guys like one we’ll order it for the wedding. Gansey’s talked to you about this bakery, Adam.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam recalled, willing the blush to remain out of his cheeks. He remembered little to no details, because over the course of the phone call in question, Ronan had gotten bored and decided to see how long Adam could hold a coherent conversation while being sucked off. But there _had_ been a bakery mentioned. He’d retained that much. 

“Friends of the family,” Helen added with a wave of her hand. “If you aren’t a fan of any of these, there’s plenty of time to try more. The bottom tier is classic wedding cake paired with German Black Forest, the middle is turtle and sour cream, and the top is berry lemonade.”

“I figured we’d just whip up some shit out of a box,” Ronan said, which earned him glares from all of the room’s other occupants. 

“This is wonderful, Helen,” Adam amended. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re just as much my brother as Dick is, and I wasn’t allowed to meddle in _his_ wedding nearly as much as I would’ve liked. If you need anything at all, I have it covered. Speaking of Dick, where is he?”

“He was outside last time I saw him,” Ronan said, reaching around Blue to scoop a finger through the mashed potatoes and pop it into his mouth. 

“Ronan!” 

“Calm down, half-pint. My hands are clean. Anyway, yeah, maybe check the greenhouse. He said he was gonna bring some flowers in to put on the table. His face kinda looks like shit. Fair warning.”

“Why,” Helen inquired, “does his face look like shit?”

“I clocked him,” Ronan told her. 

Helen raised a brow. “Did he deserve it?”

“Yes,” Blue sighed. 

Helen nodded, turned, and headed back toward the entrance of the house. 

She was around half an hour early, but everyone else began piling in soon after. Declan showed up next, of course, with Ashley in tow. Then came Gansey’s parents, and then Maura and Dean, trailed by the rest of the Fox Way crew. This was everyone Adam was expecting, so when Henry Cheng’s Prius pulled into the drive, he was both surprised and pleased, meeting him in the doorway and pulling him into a hug. 

“I thought you couldn’t make it,” he said, leading Henry into the living room where Gansey had set up the gift table and attempting to ignore the size of the package in his arms. 

“I lied,” Henry divulged, grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t believe you thought I’d miss this, Parrish, you absolute treasure. The trip to Cambodia is _next_ week, but even if it hadn’t been, I’d have cancelled.”

“You’re too good to us,” Adam told him. The table was nearly overflowing with presents (which Adam was a little confused by, because were an engagement party and a wedding shower the same thing? Did they have to have both? If so, wasn’t this the wrong occasion? And what was the difference between engagement party gifts and wedding gifts?) but he rearranged some for Henry to fit his amongst the chaos. “Gansey’s upstairs getting Opal up from her nap, but they should be down in a minute. Then you’ve gotta tell us all about Peru.”

“Oh, please,” Henry chortled. “You don’t want to hear about Peru. This is your _engagement party_ , for crying out loud. Be excited! Speaking of which, where’s your future husband?”

“Probably—” Adam started, but was interrupted by a loud _smack_ , and looked up, startled, to see that Ronan was banging against the window from the outside. Hand to his chest in attempt to quell his erratic heartbeat, he asked, annoyed, “What?”

 _Nothing,_ Ronan mouthed, smiling widely, and then, _Hey, Cheng._

Henry waved, attempting fruitlessly to stifle his laughter. “Well. That answers that question.”

“You can have him,” Adam said, turning away from the window when Ronan did. “I’ll pay you a monthly stipend for food and board.”

“There isn’t enough money in the world,” Henry teased. “Is everything done? Can I help with anything? Put me to work.”

“You can make punch if you want,” Adam offered, steering them toward the kitchen. “Blue didn’t wanna do it too early so the sherbert wouldn’t melt.”

“My god, you are just southern to your core, aren’t you? _Sherbert._ I’ve missed you.”

Adam snorted, pulling open the fridge to extract the fruit punch, pineapple juice, orange juice, 7-up, and vodka. “Punch bowls are under the sink. One with alcohol, one with soda. Please don’t mix them up. I’ve gotta give one to my kid.”

“Noted,” Henry said, already setting himself to retrieving the bowls. “Worst case scenario, I’ll taste both if I forget.”

“Such a team player,” Adam chuckled. “I’m gonna go see what the hell Ronan’s doing outside, but I think I hear Gans and Opal. They should be down in a minute.”

Ronan, as it turned out, was in the barn closest to the house, emptying a metal bucket of water into one of the troughs.

“You need any help?” Adam asked, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. It had started to heat up by a significant margin, and all the cows were particularly disinterested in activity, some lying about and grazing on the hay beneath them, some sleeping. 

Ronan emptied the bucket, dropped it next to the trough, and looked up to meet Adam’s eyes. “Just making sure they had enough to drink. I’m not trying to run away already, Parrish. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Adam told him, a slight grin tugging at the corner of his lips. The urge to step forward and pull Ronan to him was irresistible, so he didn’t resist it; just allowed himself to give in and wrapped his arms around him, pressing their lips together, not gently, but not with any real intent.

Ronan hummed into the kiss and hooked his hands together behind Adam’s neck, fingers curling into his hair. 

“It’s hot,” Adam said when he finally broke away. “I’m wearing white. If I start sweating it’ll be gross. Come back in with me.”

Because he could deny Adam nothing, Ronan went.

Inside, in the short time Adam had been gone, the party had truly begun. Food was being eaten. Stories were being told. Orla already seemed a little tipsy, but then, Adam considered, when didn’t she? Chainsaw was swooping in and out of the house through the open living room window, circling around and occasionally landing on Opal’s shoulder, which prompted her to squeal and nuzzle the raven’s soft feathers. 

Adam allowed himself a moment to take it all in, and the amount of pure, unadulterated _love_ that pulsed through him was almost painful. He and Ronan kept their circle small. Adam hadn’t made anything more than acquaintances at work, and Ronan had only become friendly enough with the other sellers at the local farmer’s market to trade goods every once in a while. There was no growing surplus of people to invite over. Just this. Everyone here. Their family.

Gansey, he noted with a hint of amusement, must have used some of Blue’s concealer to cover the bruise on his jaw, as it wasn’t visible at all from where he sat on the loveseat across the room, fully engaged in a conversation with Henry, arm around Blue’s waist to hold her stable on his lap. 

Declan had Opal draped across him and was becoming quite visibly annoyed by Chainsaw, but even more so by how funny Matthew, perched on the arm of the couch to his left, seemed to find it.

Maura and Calla and Jimi occupied three of the orphan chairs Gansey and Ronan had dredged from the depths of the basement, and Orla sat on the floor, painting her nails amidst the chaos.

Dean stood behind Maura’s seat, stiff and overly-formal but not uncomfortable. Every Gansey save for the youngest could be heard from the kitchen, conversing with Ashley (about whether she and Declan would ever get married, Adam guessed).

“You hungry?” Ronan asked from his side, grounding him a little.

Adam shrugged. It hadn’t been too long ago that they’d had breakfast, but, though it had been an obscene amount of food, pancakes were practically a dessert. Something more passable for a meal didn’t sound like the worst idea he’d ever heard. “I could eat.”

“Stay here,” Ronan instructed, “or you’ll get sucked in by the fucking Kennedys. They hate me, so I won’t be long.”

Adam scoffed, bumping Ronan’s shoulder with his own, and went to sit down at Gansey’s feet, leaning back against his legs.

Gansey and Henry, he could hear now, were debating Welsh mythology, and Gansey didn’t break stride, but he did reach down to ruffle Adam’s hair in acknowledgement of his presence.

Blue, in true Blue fashion, swung the top half of her body so that she was practically upside-down in Gansey’s grasp, head resting on Adam’s shoulder. 

“They’re not very inclusive,” she said, nodding upward. “Not that I really want to be involved. I’m afraid if I asked a question we’d end up on a branch topic for the next hour.”

“You definitely would,” Adam assured her. “Wanna play a game instead?”  
“Always.”

Inconspicuously, Adam gestured to Declan with his head. “What’s he thinking about?”

“Oh, my _favorite_ game. He’s trying really hard to look like he’s thinking about taxes just in case anyone tries to guess what he’s thinking—this is Declan, he prepares for everything—but he’s actually secretly _super_ invested in Extreme Home Makeover and he wants to go watch it right now.”

“Of course,” Adam agreed. “So obvious. What about…your mom?”

“She’s trying not to tell Orla to put the nail polish away. So am I.”

Adam snorted, nodding his head. “Gansey?”

“One track mind. There is nothing underlying. Welsh mythology.”

Before Adam could choose his next victim, Ronan reappeared in the doorway with a plate of food in one hand, a glass of punch in the other. “How ‘bout him?”

“You,” Blue said softly, because there was no way around it. “Just you.”

* * *

It wasn’t until the sun had started to shy away from the sky that people began trickling out. 

Gifts had been opened—from the Fox Way crew, a new set of tarot cards for Adam and a beautifully crafted bow and arrow for Ronan with the ominous message that he would need it. Adam tucked that into the back of his mind for later. 

From Gansey’s parents and sister, a bottle of Yamazake 50 Year Single Malt Whiskey that had likely cost more than Adam’s life’s worth. 

From Blue, a shadow box full of memories she’d collected over the years, which made it perfectly clear to Adam that she’d been planning this for quite some time. It showcased the logo of his old Coca-Cola t-shirt, a braided knot of Ronan’s various worn and broken leather bands, photographs of the two of them before and after the precipice of _together_ (there would have been no distinguishing features to anyone who didn’t know their timeline), movie tickets, gelato punch cards, messily scrawled, short notes in Latin, and even a handful of receipts from Nino’s. (Adam had hugged her and hugged her and hugged her.) 

From Gansey, meant to be a joke, but not received as one, a model of the Barns, fully equipped with miniature animals and miniature versions of Adam, Ronan, and Opal. Adam vowed to house it atop the cedar chest in their bedroom where he would be able to see it every night. 

Declan, apparently, had tried to rent out an apartment in the city for Adam in case he ever needed time away from Ronan, and Ashley had quickly assured him that he was being an idiot, so they’d settled on full access passes for both Adam and Ronan to a massage therapist they frequented, promising to take Opal anytime they needed. 

Henry’s gift, in the oversized box, turned out to be an electronic globe, with colored markers for Henry (purple), Gansey (orange), Blue (blue, which Blue had looked downright murderous over), Adam (green), Ronan (red), and—Adam had had to fight back tears—Noah (yellow). The markers would move around the globe, Henry explained, according to the location devices on each of their phones, which he could reprogram when any of them got new ones, and he’d designed it as a way for all of them to be seen in one place, even when they weren’t. Noah’s, of course, was stationary, and connected to nothing, but it still sent a surge of warmth through Adam to see it there—the only one not included in the current cluster of the Barns, but not too far away.

Matthew had claimed that he _was_ the present, which had gone unanticipated by no one, and then surprised everyone by saying he’d actually just left it at his apartment by mistake, but that it was, “So cool, Jesus Christ,” prompting both his brothers to reprimand him for cursing.

Cake had been tested and then eaten in earnest—the verdict was that they would have cupcakes rather than a traditional cake to include more flavors, because there was simply no narrowing down preference. Gansey, Calla, Helen, and Declan favored the bottom tier, Adam, Matthew, Jimi, Maura, Ashley, and Blue all liked the middle best, and between Ronan, Opal, Henry, and Orla, the berry lemonade top had been entirely devoured. Gansey’s parents had not partaken, because they were dieting, and Dean had not partaken because he didn’t like cake, for which Maura had told him he was straight-laced scum and then kissed him with icing on her mouth.

The house had been restored to order—the Fox Way crew had put away leftover food, Henry and Adam had washed dishes, Ronan and Blue had manhandled all the extra furniture back downstairs, Gansey’s family had carried gifts up to the bedroom, and Declan and Ashley had attempted to wrangle Opal as she tore through the house, finally giving up and ushering her outside to run out her energy.

When everyone was gone who wasn’t staying (which left the previous night’s crew, plus Henry), Matthew prepared two enormous bowls of popcorn and ushered everyone into the living room to begin marathoning Lord of the Rings, which actually meant turning it on and continuing to converse amongst themselves. They recreated the palette in the floor, and once they’d settled in, Fellowship of the Ring started, Adam cleared his throat.

“So, you guys are all gonna be, like, _in_ the wedding, right?”

Blue raised a brow. “Are we?”

“Well,” Adam said. “I mean. Yeah. We were in yours. Only fair if you return the favor. And you’re Ronan’s brother, Matt, so you’re obligated.”

“Oh, so I’m off the hook, then,” Henry reasoned around a mouthful of popcorn. He was the only less than sober one out of them all, everyone else having restricted themselves to only a cup or two of punch, and it was obvious from his slight slur. “‘Cause, you know. I’m not married, so you haven’t done me any favors in that department. And I’m not anyone’s brother.”

“Fuck off, Cheng,” Ronan said amiably. “You’re right in the middle of the hook. Stop wiggling.”

Henry beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What were Adam and Gansey talking about during the fight??? Stay tuned to find out!  
> Also, we’re just not going to discuss the fact that I literally didn’t mention them speaking a word to Henry before this chapter, because????? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. If you haven’t figured that out by now, hi, I’m an idiot.  
> Also also, this chapter feels really all over the place, so v sry for that.  
> Also also also, I don’t have a clue why the very first chapter was from Ronan’s POV (back when it was supposed to be a one-shot) and every one after it has been from Adam’s, and I honestly can’t say whether there will be another Ronan-centric one or not. I apologize. This is an actual mess, but thanks for sticking with it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roughly half an hour later, coffee brewed and consumed, Ronan fully clothed, they all piled into the BMW (the easiest option, as they wouldn’t have to move Opal’s seat) and headed to meet Gansey’s private tailor.
> 
> When they arrived, Adam’s first instinct was to request that Ronan turn the car around.
> 
> They’d covered the fact (too many times to count now) that this was Gansey’s gift to them and that they would not under any circumstances be allowed to pay, but he found himself wondering what he was getting into as he peered up at the nineteenth century Gothic Victorian before him. The house was turreted, literally, and lacelike trim bordered the roof’s peaks, spilling into latticework that bore bountiful vines of roses, bright red and contrasting starkly against the dull brick exterior beneath.
> 
> “Gans,” he breathed. “Who is this guy?”
> 
> Gansey laughed.

“Ronan.” Adam drew in a jagged breath, nails digging with little purchase into the flesh of his fiancé’s shoulder. “It’s seven. Opal’s gonna be up anytime now. We have to— _oh._ ”

“She can wait,” Ronan ground out, sliding back into Adam’s body at a leisurely pace, head dipping to mouth at Adam’s neck. “Door’s locked. We’ll just pretend to be asleep.”

“I’m gonna have a real hard time staying quiet enough to pretend to be asleep if you don’t take it easy,” Adam panted, eyes fluttering closed. But in spite of himself, he tilted his hips up to get better friction on his cock between Ronan’s stomach and his own. 

Ronan laughed, low and breathy, into his good ear. “You’re not helping your case, Parrish. If you come in the next five minutes we don’t have to worry about it. Just shut up and let me take care of you.”

Adam shut up.

Ronan pushed himself onto his knees and pulled Adam into his lap, angling at just the right degree to hit his prostate on every downward thrust.

Adam opened his mouth.

“ _Shhh_ ,” Ronan reminded him, sliding a hand up his torso and running two fingers so lightly over his left nipple he may as well not have touched him at all.

Adam wanted to point out that this wasn’t fair, but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to form words, so he bit down on the insides of his cheeks instead. 

“You’re all right,” Ronan soothed, amused, forehead against his collarbone. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Adam breathed, tight heat already pooling under his belly button. It wasn’t going to take five minutes. 

Ronan’s right hand wrapped around him with just the right amount of pressure, perfectly attuned to him after spending so many years learning his body, slicking him up with his own precome. 

“In,” Ronan said, because Adam was getting overwhelmed, and he was as supernaturally aware of it as always. 

Adam took a breath. 

“Out,” Ronan instructed. He was close, too—Adam could tell by the slight lilt to his voice. 

Adam breathed out. 

“It’s okay,” Ronan reiterated, wrist twisting just right at the head of Adam’s cock, driving tendrils of heat down his thighs and up into his chest. “Go ahead. I’ve got you.”

Adam came first, allowing Ronan to work him through it, and only once he was obviously backing off the crest did Ronan come inside him, shuddering and silent, lips pressed to his shoulder. 

“Good?” he asked, after. 

“Good,” Adam confirmed. 

“Come on, then. Kid’s been knocking for a solid minute.”

* * *

After tending to the farm ( _late_ ) and feeding Opal breakfast ( _late_ ) because neither of them was content to let her go about her day having only munched on sticks, Ronan headed back upstairs to shower and Adam called Blue. 

“Morning, sunshine,” she answered cheerily, over the rapid decrescendo of classical music (it must have been Gansey’s turn to control the aux cord). “We’re almost there. Has Opal decided who she’s going with yet?”

“No,” Adam laughed, filling the French press with coffee grounds and setting a pot of water on the stove to boil. “She’s outside right now blowing off steam because she’s pissed that we’re not all going together.”

“Well,” Blue said, considering. “Technically speaking, we _could_. If you guys don’t wanna see each other’s outfits before the wedding, we can just, I don’t know, have one of you turn around. It might be easier than trying to keep her from throwing a tantrum the whole time.”

“ _We_ don’t care who sees what,” Adam prodded, hoping he was on speaker. “ _Gansey_ is the one all up-in-arms about it. But, yeah, I guess that could work. I’ll ask Ro when he gets downstairs.”

“It’s tradition!” Gansey defended, right on cue. 

Adam snorted. “Okay. Whatever. See you guys soon.”

“Oh, when I said almost, I meant _almost_ ,” Blue told him. “We’re pulling in. Bye!”

Before Adam could say another word, Blue was off the phone, and the crunching of gravel could be heard from the drive. 

Precisely ten seconds later, Ronan appeared at the top of the stairs, stark naked. 

“Ronan—” Adam tried to warn, but before he could, he heard the click of the front door, and then Blue was rushing into the room, pulling Gansey behind her. 

“Oh, _god_ ,” Gansey said. 

“Mmh,” Ronan regarded, making no attempt to cover himself. “Dick. Maggot. I was just coming to ask my _betrothed_ if I had any clean underwear in the laundry room. Don’t mind me.”

“How could we fucking _not_ ?” Blue complained loudly, ducking behind Gansey as Ronan raced jauntily down the stairs and into the hall. “Could you not have worn a _towel_?”

“My house, Sargent,” Ronan called in response, reappearing a moment later clad in a pair of dark boxer-briefs and a heather grey henley. “My junk. Don’t like it, get out.”

“ _Adam_ ,” Gansey and Blue chorused. 

Adam held his hands up in surrender, nodding toward Gansey. “He was yours first. You’ve got a better chance of reining him in than I do.”

“Need coffee,” Ronan whined, making grabby hands toward the press.

“Patience is a fucking virtue, in case no one’s ever told you that,” Adam said, pinning Ronan’s arms to his side. “It doesn’t work unless the water is _hot_. Go find Chainsaw or something, you’re getting on my nerves.”

“Damn,” Blue laughed, hopping up onto the counter and leaning back against the spice cabinet. “Who knew his influence on you would work against him?”

“This has always been a suicide mission,” Ronan sighed. “I’m gonna fuck off, I guess. Come find me when there’s caffeine.”

“Oh, wait,” Gansey interjected, “before you fuck off, how do you feel about all of us going to the suit fittings together? I can have Adam’s appointment moved back to the same time as yours. He said Opal would prefer it.”

“Awh, Parrish, I knew you’d miss me too much,” Ronan said, flashing Adam his signature smirk. “I’m game for whatever. Someone just put me in a car.”

* * *

Roughly half an hour later, coffee brewed and consumed, Ronan fully clothed, they all piled into the BMW (the easiest option, as they wouldn’t have to move Opal’s seat) and headed to meet Gansey’s private tailor.

When they arrived, Adam’s first instinct was to request that Ronan turn the car around.

They’d covered the fact (too many times to count now) that this was Gansey’s gift to them and that they would not under any circumstances be allowed to pay, but he found himself wondering what he was getting into as he peered up at the nineteenth century Gothic Victorian before him. The house was turreted, literally, and lacelike trim bordered the roof’s peaks, spilling into latticework that bore bountiful vines of roses, bright red and contrasting starkly against the dull brick exterior beneath.

“Gans,” he breathed. “Who is this guy?”

Gansey laughed.

They piled out of the car.

Ronan slung Opal onto his hip, apparently following Adam’s train of thought and holding her closely enough to his body that there would be no way for her to break or otherwise ruin ( _eat_ ) anything inside.

Ascending the steps to the porch, Blue whispered to Adam, “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never been here either. I would’ve warned you.”

“I appreciate that,” Adam told her, because he did.

Gansey knocked.

They waited.

Faintly, Adam thought he heard the sound of light footfalls rapidly descending stairs from within the house, and then the door was being pulled open.

On the other side stood a man. Well, Adam revised, _man_ was a very loose term for such a creature. Instantly, the placement of this person alongside Gansey’s meticulously pastel life made too much sense. 

He was clad in a banana-yellow suit, beneath which a crisp, white dress shirt acted as nothing more than a backdrop for his tie--paisley and metallic, a conglomerate of blues and greens and golds. Adam knew nothing about brands or designers, but he assumed, based on the general air of the situation, that this suit had cost more than his education. 

“Everyone, this is my _marvelous_ tailor, Gianfranco Ungaro. He’s been working with the family for years—I’m sure you’ll remember my boasting at his craftsmanship of my own wedding attire. Now, I know what we discussed was selecting your suits, but I may have bent the truth just a touch. They’ve already been made specifically for each of you. Today’s appointment is just a fitting.”

At that, Blue looked up at Gansey, as though even she hadn’t known.

“Oh,” Adam breathed, as the man ushered them inside. “Wow. Well, if Gansey’s approved them and the person making them, I’m sure they’ll be well beyond satisfactory, Mr...I’m so sorry, could you repeat your name, please?”

The laugh that erupted from beneath the handkerchief-clad breast pocket before Adam surprised him with its whimsy and fervor. He’d been expecting something more reserved, despite what the color palette advised. “Gianfranco Ungaro,” the man said, in a thick, decidedly Italian accent.

“Frank _what_?” Ronan asked.

Adam balked.

Gianfranco laughed again. “Please, call me Franco. It is a pleasure, truly, to finally be meeting young Richard’s dearest friends. And you—” He paused with dramatic flair, extending his hand to take Blue’s, which she allowed, if a little warily. “The one who makes our prince _quiet_. Such an extraordinary talent to possess. I am honored, sweet Jane.” Before Blue could yank her hand away, the man brought it to his lips and kissed it.

Opal giggled, ducking her head against Ronan’s neck, and Gianfranco dropped Blue’s hand to turn his attention on her. “Who is this wild little treasure?”

“Our daughter,” Adam said, taking Ronan’s lead from the site of the crash and feeling himself flood with warmth. He’d never said it aloud before. It had been inferred in plenty of situations, sure, but he had never personally presented her this way. “Opal.”

“Ah, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” Gianfranco swooned. “You must be Adam, because you aren’t sharp enough to be Ronan. As a matter of fact—” Gianfranco regarded Ronan for a moment, eyes sweeping over him slowly. “You aren’t sharp enough to be Ronan either, but you are the sharper of my two options.”

Ronan raised a brow.

Adam bit back a laugh.

“Right this way,” the tailor insisted before either of them had a chance to comment, leading them through the lower level of the immaculate house and into the back. The room they stopped before, Adam could see when he peered inside, contained a menagerie of fabrics, all seemingly categorized in a haphazard fashion that he couldn’t have understood the mechanics of to save his life. 

Gianfranco ushered them swiftly inside, motioning widely to a blush chaise and two mismatched chairs that somehow fit in perfectly next to it. “Everyone have a seat except Mr. Lynch. His fitting was meant to be first.”

“We’ll stick to that, yes,” Gansey said, not offering Ronan an opportunity to object. “Um, but we still don’t want Adam to see him. Should he wait somewhere else?”

With a mischievous grin, Gianfranco shook his head. “No, no. Turn one chair around toward the wall. I want him here for everyone else’s reaction.”

“That’s dirty,” Ronan scoffed, handing Opal over to Blue as she took her seat. “I approve. Don’t turn around, Parrish, or Gansey’ll get his panties in a twist.”

“Oh, I know better,” Adam assured him, picking up one chair by its iron back (with both hands—it was _real_ iron) and flipping it around before sitting down next to Blue. 

“I do have a separate dressing room,” Gianfranco informed Ronan, pausing for what Adam assumed, now unable to see him, was to gesture to said dressing room, “but if you don’t mind your friends seeing you in various states of undress, we can do everything right here.”

“Oh, he doesn’t mind, _trust me_ ,” Blue complained, rolling her eyes.

Adam chuckled, imagining Ronan’s razor-sharp smile. 

“I sure don’t,” Ronan agreed cheerily. “Strip me down.”

Ronan, as it turned out, stripped _himself_ down, and then stood (according to Gansey) in nothing but his boxers as they awaited Gianfranco’s return.

He came back a moment later and Adam heard the rustling of fabric as he presumably laid out Ronan’s suit. 

“I usually enjoy working with a more vibrant color palette, but I must admit, this has been a rather engaging challenge. I’ve quite had fun.”

They’d agreed to keep the wedding to neutral tones, so Adam’s imagination supplied him with an array of slates and charcoals and ivorys. He couldn’t imagine Ronan in anything warmer—not that he wouldn’t look impeccable, just that he’d never agree to it. 

The suit took what felt like an exceptionally long time for Gianfranco to finish securing Ronan into, but once he had, Adam watched a small crease form between Blue’s brows. “What the fuck?” she breathed. “I’m, like. Gonna _cry._ I wasn’t supposed to get emotional about this.”

She wasn’t crying, not _actually_ , but when Adam pushed himself back just far enough to see Gansey, he was dabbing at the corner of his eye with a handkerchief. 

“You look…”

“Good!” Opal chimed in, clapping her tiny hands together. “It’s good, Kerah.”

“Yeah,” Ronan laughed, voice soft. “I think so, too, brat.”

Gianfranco enthusiastically took Ronan’s measurements and compared them with the suit’s—apparently already very close—and then he was back in his own clothes and the suit was swept away and Adam was allowed to turn back around. 

“How was it?” he asked with a grin, standing and taking Ronan’s hand.

Ronan lifted Adam’s fingers to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “I feel like I’ve been violated. Glad it’s your turn.”

When Ronan took his place in the seat facing the wall, Gianfranco and Gansey enraptured in momentary conversation, Adam bent down next to Blue’s seat and asked, “Is it weird? Ronan in a suit?”  
“No,” Blue told him, shaking her short, dark hair into her eyes and then back out again. “I thought it would be, but no. It’s. He looks.”

“Are you trying to flirt with me, Sargent?” Ronan asked, pushing the chair up onto its back legs and smirking at her. 

Blue and Adam rolled their eyes in perfect synchronicity. 

“I was trying _not_ to be an asshole for ten seconds,” Blue informed him, “but fuck it, you looked like a bridge troll.”  
“Perfect,” Adam said. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

When Gianfranco finally pulled away from Gansey, it was to beckon Adam toward the center of the room and instruct him to undress as Ronan had as he went to retrieve the suits meant for Adam to try on.

On what Adam knew to be instinct, Ronan turned his head, catching Adam’s eyes. “You okay, Parrish? You don’t have to do it out here. He said there was a dressing room.”

Adam considered briefly, thumb rubbing up and down the edge of his pointer finger, an anxious tic he’d never quite learned to get rid of. “It’s all right,” he said finally, and then turned to the tailor, following with, “I, uh—I have quite a few pretty big scars and stuff, so fair warning. Just don’t want them to freak you out.”

Gianfranco smiled, something sad and knowing in the expression. “They couldn’t possibly,” he assured Adam.

Adam wanted to ask, but he knew better. Especially here, in front of everyone. But he understood. 

“Turn back around, Ro,” he said, because Ronan still needed convincing. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Ronan turned around.

When Gianfranco exited the room, Adam stripped his shirt over his head and peeled off his jeans, folding both neatly and placing them on a stool to his left, pointedly avoiding the mirrored wall next to him.

When Gianfranco returned, it was with a suit draped over his arm. Adam couldn’t make out the full picture—not yet—but he could see as Gianfranco approached that the majority of the fabric was an incredibly deep emerald green rather than the black he’d mistaken it for at first glance. Upon closer inspection, he also noted the lightest shimmer of silver and bronze thread intertwining upon the one lapel that was visible to him beneath the folds of the jacket. 

Before he could comment or question, he was suddenly too busy being manhandled into a white dress shirt that Gianfranco produced fluidly from under the suit, which he was instructed to button on his own while he was helped into the pants. 

The vest and jacket, Adam caught in flashes as Gianfranco worked them up his arms. They were the same color, though the vest was plain, where the metallic threading he’d glimpsed before adorned both the jacket’s lapels. He tried to cast his gaze far enough downward to catch sight of the pattern, but he proved not to need to; as soon as Gianfranco had secured a black tie around his neck, he was being whirled around to face the mirror.

Adam’s first instinct was to blink rapidly back at his reflection. He almost didn’t recognize it as himself. The detail, he could see now, was a pair of thin, twisting vines, one silver and one bronze, each bearing what appeared to be the outlines of closed rose buds trailing up their exterior sides. He wasn’t normally a fan of mixed metals, nor was he a fan of flattering himself, but he couldn’t deny the way the copper brought out the shine in his hair, or the way the silver did the same for his stormy eyes. Something about the image before him looked overall different from himself, though he couldn’t put his finger on precisely why. He appeared more awake, he thought. More alive. His lips seemed less dry, his cheeks less sallow, his freckles more prominent against his ever-tanned skin. 

His eyes found the tie next, and he realized he’d been wrong before to assume that it was simply black. Not that it wasn’t _black_ —it wasn’t _simple_. In neat, black embroidering, Adam found that at the tie’s tip, two feathers met and crossed over one another. It would have been impossible to see standing any further from the mirror than he was, and something told him, though they didn’t precisely match the rest of the suit’s theme, that there was a significance to the feathers’ presence.

“Nobody’s said shit for, like, five minutes,” Ronan accused, breaking the silence in the room and pulling Adam from his reverie. “Everything good?”

When Adam looked back to Blue, this time, she _was_ crying. “Yeah,” she answered with a watery laugh. “Sorry. Everything is— _wow_ , Adam. Wow.”

“Wow,” Gansey echoed.

“ _That_ good?” Ronan asked. Adam could see him physically fighting not to turn around. “Do you like it, Parrish?”

“I—” Adam started, and then stopped. “It’s—” He stopped again, then turned to Gianfranco, brow furrowed slightly in awe. “How did you know? This is—I don’t—”

Before Gianfranco had a chance to respond, Ronan chuckled. “I felt that way, too. I’m gonna guess it suits you just a little too well.”

“Yeah,” Adam admitted. “It’s—” _Cabeswater_ , was what he wanted to say. _The only home I ever had before the Barns. The one you gave me._ Instead, he finished, “Perfect.” He turned to Gansey now, shaking his head once, slightly, as if to infer that he knew this was his doing. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t make it,” Gansey said.

“No,” Adam agreed.

Gianfranco smiled that same, mischievous smile. “Yours fits very well,” he noted. “All we need is a slight hem to the cuffs and I believe you will be set. They should be ready to pick up in no less than a week.”

“Perfect,” Adam repeated. “Franco, really, this is more than we ever could have asked for. I don’t feel like I deserve this.”

“You deserve it every bit,” Gianfranco said, resting a hand on his shoulder. The words carried more weight than their surface intent, and Adam had to cast his eyes to Opal’s beaming face to hold himself together. _How much did this man know?_ Then, as if to disrupt the heaviness of the moment, he added, “But I am quite fond of both strawberry cheesecake and apple crumble, if you truly feel too indebted.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adam laughed, nodding toward Ronan. “I’m not much count in the kitchen once you swap the stove out for an oven, but he could sell himself by the hour as a personal baker.”

“Don’t be signing me up for shit,” Ronan said mildly, which, Adam knew full well, meant they’d be stopping at the store for ingredients on their way home.

“You can change back now,” Gianfranco told Adam after taking a couple swift measurements on the legs and sleeves. 

Adam did so, quickly, and as soon as he was told by Opal that the coast was clear, Ronan stood and crossed the floor, reaching out for him.

“Feels kind of real now, doesn’t it?” he asked, leaning down to whisper the words directly into Adam’s hearing ear. 

“Yeah,” Adam agreed, turning his head to catch Ronan’s cheek with his lips and gently squeezing his hand. “Scared?”

  
“Only that you’re gonna eat me alive at the altar when you see me in that getup,” Ronan teased, wolfish grin sweeping briefly over Adam’s mouth.

“Don’t you ever get enough?” Adam pressed just hard enough against Ronan’s chest to back him up a step, fingers still intertwined, unable to force so much as a drop of the amusement out of his voice. 

“Of you?” Ronan countered, cocking a brow. “Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels a little pointless and a lot short, but I really wanted to get something up and I had a couple people ask for suit fittings. It definitely could have been less rushed and much more heavily edited, so apologies for anything that's fucked up or doesn't flow well. I'm so sorry it's taken so long, and I promise, for anyone following, that As It Was will have an update soon, too.  
> If everything goes as planned, there should be two more chapters to this (the actual wedding and then the honeymoon), but I'm not numbering it just in case I end up veering off course, as I often tend to do.  
> Thanks so much for reading! <3
> 
> PS: in case y'all couldn't tell this whole thing is set on weekends between the proposal and the wedding bc we love u adam but we dgaf ab ur job we're trying to focus on your MARRIAGE ok thanks  
> PPS: The strawberry cheesecake and apple crumble thing was a nod to the fabulous woman who altered my wedding dress and wouldn't let us pay her nearly enough for it, so I baked for her instead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was seven when Adam woke up, and he was holding a bird to his chest.  
> He didn’t know how he knew it was seven. He didn’t know how he knew the thing he was cupping over his breastbone was a bird. He couldn’t see it. It wasn’t moving. But he knew.  
> It was coming back to life.

It was seven when Adam woke up, and he was holding a bird to his chest. 

He didn’t know how he knew it was seven. He didn’t know how he knew the thing he was cupping over his breastbone was a bird. He couldn’t see it. It wasn’t moving. But he knew.

It was coming back to life. He knew that, too, just as securely as the first time it happened. It had been a butterfly, before, and it’d tired him to a substantial agree, so he guessed that was probably why he already felt like passing back out. 

He couldn’t, though. Partly because there was a coming-back-to-life bird in his hands, but also because he didn’t have a clue how or when he’d gotten outside. He was still at the Barns--he was close enough to the longest of them to make it out through the trees. But he was lying on his back on a bed of leaves, and his nose was numb, and the bird’s wings were beginning to twitch, so whether he knew he was safe or not--at least to some degree--he needed to get a move on. 

When he sat up and eased his hands into his lap, they opened to reveal a small, dull cardinal, brown blood matting its feathers, one eye missing. 

Adam shuddered and fought the instinct to put it down. If this was happening, he was going to follow through. He didn’t understand why  _ now _ , after  _ this  _ many years, but he’d question that later. After it was done and he was back inside and had had a hot shower and some coffee.

The bird was seizing against his fingers, miniscule talons digging into the flesh of his palm, tongue writhing behind the clicking of its twisted beak.

Adam looked away, but he held on. 

This was harder than the butterfly already. 

He could feel himself draining into it. His  _ force _ . But he held on.

It was fifteen minutes of that—Adam sitting on the cold ground in the silence of the morning, reviving a bird, exhausting himself—before something shifted and he realized it was over. 

When he unhinged the cage of his fingers, the animal looking back at him was not the same. 

When Adam had healed the butterfly, it’d still sported a damaged wing. 

The cardinal’s eye was still missing. It was still dirty, tainted by blood and muck. But its spirit had returned. It opened its mouth in something Adam may have likened to a smile, had he more whimsy, and chirped a singular, grateful note.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and watched as it took off, following it over the top of the tree just left of him before losing consciousness.  


* * *

Ronan knew what had happened as soon as he found Adam just beyond the line of the woods, lips slightly parted, flushed and pale for his typical perma-tan. He didn’t know how he knew what had happened, but the instant he saw Adam’s form, his brain supplied a response to all the questions he hadn’t yet formed. 

_ He brought something back again.  _

It must’ve been bigger than the butterfly. He’d been a little out of it then, but not like someone had clocked him with a cast iron pan. Not like this.

“Parrish?” Ronan asked, crouching next to Adam’s side. 

His breathing was clear as day, even as ever, but he didn’t respond. 

“Parrish,” Ronan repeated, a hand on his shoulder.

Adam’s typical nature, if he was touched, was to startle awake. It stemmed from years of living with the sorry excuse of a human being that served as Adam’s father, and Ronan got that, and he respected it, and, ordinarily, he’d have kept his distance. But this situation wasn’t ordinary. If that fact hadn’t been clear enough before, it certainly was now.

Adam didn’t startle. He didn’t jump. Didn’t gasp. Instead, his eyelids fluttered open and then closed and he managed a hoarse, groggy, “Ronan?”

“What was it?” 

“A bird,” Adam told him, like he already understood that Ronan knew.

Carefully, because he wasn’t sure exactly what state Adam was in, Ronan lifted him to his chest.  _ Are you hurt?  _ he wanted to ask.  _ Is it bad? Are you okay?  _

“Good?”

“Good.” Adam’s voice was still rougher than gravel, but there wasn’t a moment of hesitation. “Just help me up.”

Ronan did, fully intent on sweeping Adam off his feet once he was back on them, but Adam refused, insisting that no matter how healed Ronan’s back felt, the injury was still in the recent enough past that he could hurt himself trying to carry a full-grown human being. 

He did lean on Ronan, though. All the way back to the house.

Ronan could tell the second they crossed through the doorway that Adam wouldn’t make it up the stairs, so he didn’t even bother trying. Just lowered him onto the couch and brushed a hand over his forehead and then went to the kitchen to call Gansey.

The thing about magic, when you were around it enough, was that it spread to you in small ways.

In many respects, Richard Gansey III was the most ordinary of the lot of them. Adversely, this rendered him the most susceptible to the effects of things  _ beyond _ . He wasn’t the greywaren, so he’d taught himself to lucid dream and astral project. He wasn’t the magician, so he’d perfected the art of tarot and palmistry and dowsing. He didn’t amplify power, so he’d stripped himself of one sense at a time until he was hyper-aware of everything that was around him and everything that wasn’t. 

These practices, combined with the nature of those he surrounded himself with, played to his favor. 

Today, for example, when he answered his phone, the first words out of his mouth to Ronan were, “It’s happened again, hasn’t it?”

“He’s okay,” Ronan prefaced, because the hint of concern already edging into Gansey’s voice was threatening to grow into something uglier. “But, yeah. It was a bird this time. Knocked him on his ass. He’s sleeping it off right now.”

“Well, he could’ve made worse time,” Gansey considered. His voice sounded muffled, as though he were holding the phone with his shoulder. “Jane and I are on our way in. We both took off. Thought we’d surprise you and spend the day before the wedding helping you tie up any loose ends. We’ll be there in...just under an hour. Keep him comfortable and let him rest as long as he needs. I’m going to have a talk with him when he’s up for it. I’ve got a theory.”

* * *

Adam was not up for talking.

He hadn’t expected that the jump from a butterfly to a bird would be so severe, but here he was, half the day later, and still, all he wanted to do was sleep.

It was Blue who made the obvious point.

They were all in the living room, respectively sipping tea and coffee, Adam dozing in and out with his head on Ronan’s thigh, when she said, “This is a thing, isn’t it? You get totally annihilated when the Other Place wants you to come get something? Maybe it’s not all the bird’s fault.”

“Oh,” Adam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

At the same time, Gansey breathed, “ _ Oh! _ ” as though something of great import had just been spoken to attention. “Adam, listen. I’d been meaning to bring this up—well, not this  _ exact  _ thing, I hadn’t considered that the correlation was actively at play  _ now _ —but I think the reason it’s happened again today and not a year or six months ago is because of what the Other Place told you when you first visited. About your magic.”

Adam blinked. Everything in his head was fuzzy, and his deaf ear was causing enough vertigo presently that he didn’t dare attempt to sit. “What do you mean?” he asked, stifling a yawn. “When it told me—what?”

“That we could, like, do extraordinary shit, or whatever?” Ronan supplied, fingers carding absently through Adam’s hair. “Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yes!” Gansey agreed fervently. “Yes. The rings—the keys—I think everything is coming together. The bird, if my assumptions are correct, was something of a test. You handled the butterfly fairly well, but your energy was so chaotic then, when you hadn’t learned how to water it down. When you were less honed, you were stronger in ways. Do you believe that to be true?”

Adam couldn’t believe he’d missed it. The Other Place was humming to him, soft and insistent inside his head, trying gently to lull him out of the plane of consciousness. “Yeah,” he answered. “I mean, I guess so. Why?”

“I think,” Gansey started, eyes meeting briefly with those of each person in the room, “that it wants you to try something bigger.”   


* * *

“Are you nervous?” Matthew asked, leg perpetually bouncing, even though his current position atop the kitchen island gave his foot no leverage against the floor. 

Adam laughed breathily, no energy for much else, and shoulder-checked Matthew’s elbow on his way to the fridge. “Nah. It’s not gonna change anything. We’ve been together this long, might as well stick with it.”

“ _ He’s _ nervous.” Matthew hopped down and retraced Adam’s path, motioning for him to duck and swinging open the door of the freezer to extract a tub of Moose Tracks. “Totally thinks you’re gonna change your mind and leave him at the altar. Or, like, the tree stump or whatever.”

Adam picked up a ginger ale and bumped the refrigerator closed with his hip. “If he thinks I’m gonna leave him, you should ask what makes him think I would’ve waited this long to do it.”

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Matthew’s grin was nearly as bright as the marble countertop newly reinstated beneath him as he shoveled ice cream into his mouth straight from the carton. “You’re marrying him so you can tell everyone you have the world’s coolest brother.”

“Hundred percent,” Adam scoffed. “You staying here tonight?”

“Might as well just move all my stuff in. But, yeah, I figured I would. If that’s cool.”

Adam frowned, twisting off the top of his ginger ale and taking a sip. “What do you mean, if it’s cool? You don’t have to ask to spend the night, man. This is your family’s house.”

“Oh, no, I know  _ that _ ,” Matthew assured him quickly, tongue swiping over his bottom lip to clear away a drip of chocolate. “I just meant because it’s, like. You know. The last night before the wedding. Didn’t know if you guys would want more, uh,  _ privacy _ .”

Adam’s face screwed up as though he’d tasted something sour, and he picked up the nearest soft object (a wadded up paper towel) to chuck at Matthew’s head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

Matthew dodged the bullet, picking it up off the island’s surface and firing back at Adam. “That’s why you love me.”

Adam couldn’t argue, so he didn’t. He wasn’t sure he would’ve anyway, as wiped out as he still felt. 

He’d been rolling it over in his head for the past hour, what Gansey had said.  _ It wants you to try something bigger.  _ He knew he should probably just take Ronan upstairs (he was quickly learning that the odds that he’d be sick when they returned were as good as they were not, and he preferred not to have an audience) and check in with the Other Place--see what it wanted. But there was a subtle, sneaking suspicion in the back of his mind that he wasn’t ready to face what it was going to show him. 

“You look tired,” Matthew commented, not unkindly. It was a reiteration, of course—everyone else had established this fact before Matthew’s arrival, and it was the reason Adam was the only one currently inside the house with him. Blue had dragged Gansey, Ronan, and Opal outside to begin decorating (or, in Opal’s case, eating decorations) in the barn where the ceremony would take place, but had explicitly ordered Adam to stay in and rest. If he wasn’t ready to physically or supernaturally exhaust himself any further, she said, that was fine. 

“I am,” Adam admitted, setting his bottle down next to Matthew’s leg and leaning back against the counter. “I think Ronan and I are supposed to...go get something. From…”

“Gotcha.” Matthew nodded his head, holding out a spoonful of ice cream to Adam, who simply opened his mouth in acceptance. “So why don’t you go get it, then? Doesn’t that usually wake you up some?”

“It does,” Adam agreed once he’d swallowed, slightly hesitant. “It will. I just—I don’t know what it is this time, but I’m a little worried about it.”

A slight crease formed between Matthew’s brows, the closest he ever came to a negative expression. “Worried? Why?”

Adam’s gaze met the floor, and he found himself touching the tip of each finger to his thumb; a nervous habit he’d adopted so long ago he’d forgotten its origin. “I brought a bird back today. To life. Gansey thinks...I’m afraid we’re supposed to go get someone who isn’t alive anymore, and that it wants me to bring them back.”

“Oh,” Matthew managed, spoon clattering into the sink behind him. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Adam conceded. “Oh, shit.”

“Do you have any idea who? Or why?”

Adam worried the flesh of his cheek between his teeth, shaking his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I get why  _ now _ —Gansey explained that part; we didn’t have the rings, which are—”

“—The keys, right—”

“—Until now, or, almost now, anyway, but. I don’t know. I don’t know who or why, and, honestly, I’m not—I mean, I know a lot of the exhaustion is from the Other Place trying to pull me in, but bringing back a bird fucked me up. A  _ bird _ . I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with a  _ person _ . I don’t know if I’d make it. Through that. So.”

For a long, solid moment, Matthew was silent. Then, cautiously: “What if the person wasn’t a person? Not really?”  


* * *

Ronan was pacing. 

Blue was seated on the couch, drumming her fingers on Gansey’s forearm, and Gansey was sucking voraciously on a mint leaf, and Matthew was tap-tap-tapping his foot against the hardwood. 

Adam was motionless, watching Ronan.

No one spoke.

Finally, Ronan said, “No.”

“Ro—” Adam started, but before he could press, Ronan cut him off.

“I said no. Either we go in and you’re wrong and I—I  _ lose  _ it, because I ever even had the  _ idea _ that it could happen, or you’re  _ right _ , and—no, Adam. For so many reasons,  _ no _ .”

Adam sighed, dropping his head into his hands and pressing the heels of them into his eyes. It was becoming more difficult to stay awake by the minute. “I think Matt’s right,” he tried again, lower. “She isn’t technically a  _ human _ . It wouldn’t be the same as trying to revive a whole human body and soul and—I don’t know how to explain this without sounding like a dick, but as physical as she was, she was an  _ idea _ .”

As soon as the words left Adam’s mouth, he knew he’d fucked up.

Ronan froze. 

So did everyone else.

So quietly Adam scarcely heard, he said, “Is Matthew an  _ idea _ to you, too?”

To Adam’s surprise, Matthew instantly came to his defense. 

“You know that isn’t what he meant, Ronan. Come on. You pulled me out of your  _ head _ , so, yeah. If you want to get technical, I’m an idea. And so is Chainsaw, and Opal, and so was that monster that almost tore you apart. That doesn’t make any of us less real, but it does make us more...malleable.” 

Ronan didn’t bother to defer to one of the room’s various seating options before he dropped, just lowered himself to the floor and rested his forehead against his knees. 

Gingerly, Adam sat before him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Please. Just let me try.”

For a long, long moment, there was nothing. When Ronan looked up to meet Adam’s gaze, his eyes were wet, but he nodded, once, and took Adam’s hand to give them both leverage to stand.

“We’ll be upstairs,” Adam announced, without turning to face anyone but Ronan. “I have no idea how long this will take. I don’t know for sure that I’m right. If I am, I don’t know for sure that I can do it. I have no memory of this morning until I woke up holding the bird, so I don’t know how long even  _ that _ took. And I could get crazy sick or need to sleep for the rest of the night after, which are both things I’m expecting, so don’t freak out if either of them happens.”

“Adam, if you need anything—”

At this, Adam  _ did _ turn to face Gansey. “I know,” he said. “Thank you.” Then, to Ronan, “Ready?”

Nothing more than another nod.

They ascended the stairs.

In the bedroom, Ronan sat down, legs crossed, atop the mattress, and held out his left hand.

“I love you,” Adam told him.

Ronan said nothing, which was precisely what Adam expected him to say.

Adam took his hand.

Inside the Other Place, with no preamble, no dramatic rise, Adam and Ronan were faced with Aurora Lynch. 

Adam looked from her still, crumpled form to Ronan, attempting to gauge a reaction.

There was none.

He did, however, find something else.

Around Ronan’s form, an aura glimmered. 

When he cast his eyes downward, to sweep over his own hand, he found that there was light encircling him, too.

Suddenly, something clicked into place, and a rush of relief swept over Adam, strong enough that he gripped Ronan’s arm to keep it from sending him to his knees. 

“Ro,” he whispered, because this felt like a time for whispering. “I know what we have to do.”  


* * *

It was only an hour later that they all sat in the living room once again, but this time it was with Matthew curled into his mother’s lap, one of her hands held fast by each of her older sons. 

“Explain,” was all Declan could say, bewilderment and shock present on his face. He’d made it in from DC in half the time it should’ve taken him once Matthew had called to inform him of Aurora’s immaculate return, and Adam didn’t want to know what excuse he’d had to feed Ashley to convince her not to accompany him, especially since the plan had been that they’d travel to the Barns together in the morning for the wedding.

“I—” Adam tried, and faltered, and then tried again. “I woke up reviving a bird this morning. It had only happened once before then, but I knew what was going on, so I just—I  _ did _ it. It knocked me out, though. Hard. For, like, hours. And Blue thought, you know, maybe it  _ wasn’t _ just the bird. Maybe it was the Other Place trying to...pull me in or whatever. And then Gansey thought maybe it wanted me to try something else. Something  _ bigger. _ ”

“Christ,” Declan said.

“Don’t curse,” Matthew told him. 

“I didn’t actually understand what that meant until I talked to Matt,” Adam continued. “He was the one who suggested it might be your mom. Because she was...she’s…”

“A dream,” Aurora finished gracefully, offering Adam a warm, encouraging smile.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed in a breath. “We didn’t know what the mechanics of that would be, but we thought maybe it would be easier than a—a naturally born human. So. I had to try, obviously.

And then, as soon as we got there, Ronan and I, I just. I  _ knew _ . There was this aura around him, and one around me, and I just knew what we were supposed to do. All of a sudden, I understood what the Other Place had  _ really _ been there for the whole time. I mean, yeah, it’s been convenient to go in and bring out inanimate objects whenever we need them, but the  _ real  _ point, the big picture, is that rather than draining every bit of force out of me, if I bring something back in there, it  _ fuels _ me. As soon as she was breathing, I felt stronger than I’ve ever been. And it was so  _ easy _ . It took—I don’t know, half an hour? For a whole  _ person _ ? When we were finished, we just...came back. And she was right here with us. Awake. Perfectly healthy.”

Declan looked very, very near death.

“You should sit down,” Adam suggested.

He expected some form of protest, but Declan took a seat on the edge of the couch. 

“So, what you’re saying—” Declan took a trembling, forced breath, and the look Ronan gave him was the closest thing Adam had seen to concern for his brother. “What you’re saying is—”

“What he’s saying,” Gansey cut in, clear and collected and the voice of reason, as always, “is that they can bring people back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOO HERE’S WHAT GANSEY AND ADAM WERE FIGHTING ABOUT SORRY I MADE Y’ALL WAIT LIKE A YEAR FOR IT
> 
> also I SWEAR the next chapter will be the actual wedding okay I SWEAR
> 
> to anyone who’s still here: thank you from the bottom of my fucking heart for reading this story I literally love you more than I could ever express


End file.
